Gorgeous East

by null

  “You can also be a bum,” Smith countered. “A homeless bum. Or murdered by hip-hop gangstas in your own apartment. Or shot in a drive-by—”

  “Don’t be morbid, my sweet!” Louise said breathlessly. “Let’s think about this a minute—” The details solidifying in her head. “I’ve got plenty of money. There’s Phillipe’s estate. I’ll have to sell a few things—but not the château, not yet. Many years ago, he bought a tiny but important Pissarro, now worth at least a couple of million euros, and there’s an old Delahaye—it’s a famous French car, a very fine car—stashed away in one of our barns. It used to belong to his father—even in pieces worth two or three hundred thousand. I’ll get rid of those things first!”

  Smith, giddy with possibility, leaned over and kissed her.

  “You’re happy?”

  “I don’t deserve all this happiness!”

  “Oh, you do, chéri! You do!”

  The thing was, he didn’t.

  And the thought that he didn’t deserve any of it, not really, that he hadn’t yet paid his debt to the merciless Furies or to France nagged at Smith all through the next two months as Louise contacted lawyers, sold paintings and cases of rare vintage wine from the cellars of the château, assembled a substantial bankroll and wired it to her new account established at a Credit Lyonnais branch in Manhattan.

  At last, all arrangements in place, plane tickets bought, passport retrieved from Poste Restante, Smith obtained a two-hour pass—ostensibly to do a couple of quick errands in Aubagne—and instead snuck aboard the local for Paris, where he changed out of his expertly creased Legion uniform in the cramped bathroom of the café car. During a twenty-minute stop at Chalons, he tied it all into a bundle—the sacred kepi blanc, the stiff, spotless shirt, the neatly ironed trousers, and Ranger boots—and threw the bundle into a nearby canal, sticking around long enough to watch it sink to the bottom. And he disembarked in nondescript civilian clothes six hours later two stops short of the capital, at the Aeroport Charles de Gaulle.

  3.

  A major international airport is like a medium-sized city in microcosm—without permanent residents but with a city’s worth of people coming and going. There are shopping districts, bookstores, cafés, better and worse neighborhoods, out-of-the-way corners. The underlit extremity of CDG Terminal 2, Spur 6, the Air Martinique Terminal, currently under renovation, with many of its fluorescents knocked out by an electrical glitch and its storefronts and departure gates closed with yellow tape, was the perfect place for a rendezvous of conspirators.

  Louise found Smith there, slumped furtively over a glass of red wine at one of the three concourse tables at a small restaurant called Chez l’Auvergnat. The strong scent of the rich, aged cheeses of the Auvergne region curled out of the glass counters inside to assault the nostrils. Just now, Smith felt nervous, queasy—a sensation made worse by the stink of the cheese. It seemed what he was about to do—his desertion—had its own rancid smell, something the bomb-sniffing dogs at the security gates would surely be able to identify. He could see it now: He would be sniffed out before he boarded the plane for New York, cut from the crowds of tourists like an errant sheep and chased down the concourse by a pack of braying hounds.

  Across the narrow spur just beyond some electrical scaffolding, an arched window, half covered with plastic sheeting, overlooked the tarmac. The blue and white Air Martinique Airbus liners, absolutely massive machines, were parked out there along the spokes of the wheel beneath a lowering sky. A dark line above the horizon in the distance indicated approaching rain. A Legionnaire caught trying to desert was subject to a variety of terrible punishments—beginning with beatings and solitary confinement in le trou and ending with a six months’ stay in that frozen prison camp in the Jura Mountains. Louise took Smith’s hand and put it between her thighs and held it tightly there for a moment—a potent reference to their first night together.

  “Mon amour,” she murmured. “Are you ready?”

  Smith looked up from his wine with some reluctance. It was impossible to think clearly when confronted with those large, wonderful indigo eyes. She looked beautiful today wearing a simple, expensive pale blue dress, delicate blue jade hoops in her ears, her skin glowing like pearls beneath a black light, as if her blood and viscera were slightly radioactive.

  “What’s wrong?” She flinched beneath his scrutiny. “Something’s wrong!”

  “No, nothing,” Smith said and finished his wine in two swallows and signaled to the waiter. “Just let me pay the bill—”

  “I know you’re nervous,” Louise said, as Smith put the last of his heavy euro coins onto the waiter’s tray. “But your passport is valid. Yes, the visa stamp isn’t current, but you’re going home, back to the United States. Why would they—”

  “Stop it, Louise!” Smith interrupted sharply. Then, more gently, “Please. I’ve been thinking about all that for days. I’ve considered all the angles, I even talked to someone at the American Embassy. We’ll be all right. Let’s go, let’s just get it over with.”

  Louise bit her lip. She looked a little hurt. “Kiss me first,” she said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Smith sighed, and he kissed her and they shouldered their carry-ons and passed from Chez l’Auvergnat’s pungent, shadowy corner into brighter neighborhoods—a post office, boutiques selling Hermès ties and Montblanc pens, restaurants specializing in seafood nearly as good as some in Paris—and from there into the elevators as big as railway cars that descended to the security checkpoints below.

  4.

  Thousands of passengers stood waiting to go through the metal detectors to the gleaming spurs and the departure gates where the planes were being fueled and cleaned for transatlantic flights. The lines snaked around, six deep, between strap-and-pole barriers, the whole area patrolled by tough-looking soldiers with bomb-sniffing dogs.

  Smith watched as a team of three soldiers and two dogs came up between the barriers, the claws of the dogs—big Belgian shepherds—clicking against the hard floor of polished aggregate. They nosed along the ground, panting and sniffing at the bags and at the shoes of the wary travelers. Smith recognized the soldiers’ identifying shoulder patch—these men had been detached for airport security duty from the 1e Montagnard, Armée de Terre—a mountain regiment based in Haute-Savoie, with whom Smith’s training section had once participated in a twenty-four-hour joint maneuver back during Basic. They wore the Armée de Terre black beret with the mountain-peak patch of their regiment on the right side, and carried the ubiquitous FAMAS 5.56 slung over the left shoulder. Smith felt himself sweating profusely as they passed. What if one of them recognized him? But they didn’t stop, their dogs trained to sniff out plastic and dynamite, not deserting Legionnaires with anxious hearts.

  “Once we’re at the gate, we’ll get a drink in the first-class lounge,” Louise whispered. “Who would ever suspect a Legionnaire of flying first class?”

  Smith didn’t say anything.

  “It’s too bad they got rid of the Concorde,” Louise continued after a moment, just to make conversation. “We’d be in New York in under three hours . . .” Her voice trailed off. She was beginning to catch some of the nervousness evaporating with the sweat off Smith’s skin. The metal detectors looming far ahead seemed an impossible goal, the gates to heaven.

  We’ll never make it. Smith peered into the distance, shading his eyes from the fluorescent glare. The dogs will get me first. In the seconds following this disturbing thought, one of the Belgian shepherds began to bark two rows over and Smith held his breath. But the dogs had found a woman wearing a colorful headscarf—probably a Gypsy or maybe Turkish—and were now snarling at the large, black vinyl bag at her feet and pointing to it with their snouts. The soldiers of the 1e Montagnard drew around the woman menacingly; she stepped away from the bag, terrified, and put her hands on her head. One of the soldiers unzipped the bag and rummaged around and after a few perilous seconds withdrew a large salami. He gestured wi
th it crudely and the others laughed. Then, to the disappointment of the dogs, he zipped the salami back into the bag and tossed it back to the woman. Shaken by the ordeal, she burst into tears. The soldiers moved on.

  “Oh, c’est affreux!” Louise said, shaking her head. “Poor woman. You would call that racial profiling in the United States!”

  Smith shrugged, distracted by the crowds, the loud humming of the fluorescent overheads. He had a headache. The line inched forward.

  “Those planes were tearing up the sky . . . ,” he muttered, distracted, as they came up to the X-ray machine, as they lay their bags on the conveyer belt. He was talking about the Concorde, a subject that hadn’t been mentioned for at least ten minutes. “Something about making a hole in the ozone layer . . .”

  Louise looked at him, puzzled. “What’s that, chéri?”

  “Never mind.”

  Their carry-ons rolled into the maw of the machine, then Smith and Louise took off their shoes, their belts. Louise removed her jade and silver hoops and a heavy-looking platinum bracelet and placed it all in a plastic bowl provided for that purpose. Smith unstrapped his watch apprehensively—it had a military-style black web band and a black face with glow-in-the-dark numbers, distinctly of the type issued to the Legion. He went through the metal detector first; Louise followed. More soldiers of the 1e Montagnard waited on the other side.

  But the deserting Legionnaire and his lover passed through security and the gauntlet of soldiers and down the long corridor to the departure spur without being stopped or questioned. Smith found their gate—112a Air Martinique Vol/Flight 3387 Non-Stop—CDG Paris–KIA New York, departure almost two hours off, but business class already lining up. Across the way, through a pane of etched glass, first-class passengers could be seen drinking quietly and nibbling at snacks on comfortable chairs in the lounge. One storefront down, the cheery facade of a duty-free shop gleamed with bottles of fine perfume and expensive cognac, all displayed on pedestals draped with watered silk in the window. Louise turned to Smith, and kissed him.

  “Et voilà!” she announced triumphantly. “Nous sommes libres. I told you we’d be O.K.!”

  Smith managed a smile.

  “I’m just going to go in there”—she gestured to the duty-free shop—“I want to have a look at the perfumes. And I might get a magnum of good champagne to celebrate, enough to get us both really drunk. We’ll swallow the whole damned bottle when we get to New York. Wait here a minute—”

  She dropped her bag and kissed him on the cheek and went into the shop.

  Smith waited. He watched her through the window, sampling perfumes, holding little cards up to her delicate nose, trying a little squirt of this or that on her slim wrist. He turned away. Two more Montagnard soldiers stood on guard close by, at the top of the escalator that led down to the departure gate. Smith tried not to look at them, but couldn’t help himself. One of them was tall and very black, probably an African; the other, thin and loose-looking, all pink and white with colorless eyes set oddly far apart in his head that made him resemble a fish.

  The decapitation of Al Bab had not finished the Marabout insurgency. The soul of their leader had migrated into the body of a ten-year-old boy discovered by Marabout mullahs among the refugees of the Awsard camp—this according to the latest UN reports from Western Sahara. There was talk of the Legion returning to the Hip of Africa to keep the peace until MINURSO could effectuate its final withdrawal from the region. If caught deserting now, Smith could be charged with desertion in the face of the enemy. The penalties for this infraction—in the old days death by firing squad—were still too horrible to contemplate.

  The judder and scream of jet engines could be felt as a dull rumble through the soles of Smith’s new civilian shoes. Suddenly, he heard Colonel de Noyer’s voice, a ghostly whisper in his ear: “I am a volunteer serving France with honor and fidelity unto death. Devoted to my commanding officers, courage and loyalty are my virtues . . .”

  And he saw for a moment that grim, familiar view of the peaks of the Galtat Zemmur, the bleak escarpments out the doorway of his old prison hovel, and felt the mountain chill along his bare skin and he knew that some part of himself would always be chained there, naked, waiting to die. He turned back toward the duty-free shop, a sudden feeling of despair clutching his heart. He wanted to cry out to Louise, wanted her to stop him from doing what, suddenly, he knew he would do next. She was at the register now, paying with a credit card as the smiling clerk wrapped a large bottle of champagne in colorful paper. He didn’t have much time, he wouldn’t have the strength to act once she returned. Now! He turned smartly on his heels and marched up to the two soldiers standing guard at the top of the escalator.

  “Legionnaire Milquetoast, serial number 02294897,” he announced, and drew himself up and saluted, palm out, Legion fashion. “Reporting as a deserter. I ask to be returned to my regiment in Aubagne under arrest!”

  The soldiers looked at him blankly. Was this some kind of joke?

  “Mais t’es fou?” the African soldier said. You crazy? Then, “Move on before I call security.”

  “Once again, I ask to—” Smith began.

  “Want me to go for the sergeant?” the fish-eyed soldier interrupted. “I’ll go for the sergeant!”

  “This one’s a big joker.” The African shook his head. Then to Smith, in a low voice. “Move on, I said. You have a valid ticket and a passport or you wouldn’t have gotten this far. Just get on your plane and go!”

  “I can’t do that,” Smith said. “If you’ll please call your duty officer.”

  “I’ll get the sergeant!” the fish-eyed soldier interrupted and he turned and hurried off down the concourse.

  “Get out of here!” the African soldier said to Smith. “Before it’s too late!”

  “Legionnaire Milquetoast,” Smith began again. “Serial number—” But this time he was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass from the direction of the duty-free shop—Louise had dropped the magnum of Veuve Clicquot.

  “Non! Stop!”

  And she was at Smith’s side, pulling on his arm desperately, pulling him toward the gate.

  “Don’t listen to him,” she pleaded with the African soldier. “He hasn’t been well. We’re going to America, you see. We’re going to start a new life . . .” But she choked on her words, tears running down her face. Smith wrenched his arm away.

  “I demand to be placed under arrest,” he told the African soldier insistently. “I demand to be returned to my regiment.”

  “Non, non . . . !” Louise, sobbing now. “He’s crazy. John, please. Please! I’m begging you. I love you! Look at me! Johnny!”

  Smith couldn’t look at her, he needed all his strength for this. The African soldier shook his head.

  “Idiot,” he said.

  A group of soldiers and five or six security guards were now approaching quickly from the far end of the concourse.

  “You know what they’ll do to you in Aubagne?” The African soldier leaned forward, his voice low, urgent. “They’ll cut your balls off and feed them to you on a plate. Me, I’d rather go to America”—he shifted his eyes to Louise—“especially with her! Listen, I’ll tell them that you’re a little drunk, that it’s all a funny joke. Go! This is your last chance!”

  Smith shook his head and turned to face Louise.

  “Darling,” Smith said, resolved. “I’m sorry. I signed on to serve France for five years. I’ve got to finish my enlistment. I’m so sorry.”

  The tears on Louise’s face dried suddenly, her eyes went cold. “Then you are a fool!” she hissed. “A moron! The Legion is a mad house, perfect for people like you! Everything was arranged! How can you do this to me?”

  “Come down to Aubagne,” Smith said. “We’ll rent the apartment again. I swore to your husband I’d—”

  Suddenly, Louise put her hands over her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs—a shrill note, pathetic and enraged at once and far more expressive than wor
ds. This was the one eventuality she had refused to contemplate: Now her lover, like her dead husband before him, had chosen the Legion over her! Very quickly, in mere seconds, all the tenderness she felt for Smith died inside her like a miscarried embryo. How could she have been so stupid to have fallen in love with this American buffoon? She stepped around him, picking up her feet carefully as one might step around a fresh piece of roadkill, and walked quickly to the escalator.

  “Louise!” Smith called. “Wait—”

  “I will not be some Legionnaire’s bitch!” she shouted over her shoulder and she didn’t turn around and was halfway down the escalator on her way to New York without him, drawn by gravity to the departure gate as rough hands pulled Smith to his knees, as his arms were drawn back, cuffs snapped over his wrists.

  “I’ve never seen anything so absolutely idiotic!” the African soldier said now, disgusted. “You’re really in for it now, putain!”

  Smith didn’t respond, trying not to think about the consequences of what he had just done. And he tried not to think about it throughout the course of the vicious beatings administered in the holding tank at the Fort de Nogent two hours later; tried not to think in the back of the prison van taking him, cut and bruised and poorly bandaged, to the Legion prison camp at Lac d’Ilay in the Jura mountains the next morning. (The hastily convened military court had sentenced him to three months’ hard labor, three less the usual six, inclined toward leniency on account of his medals and the fact that he’d turned himself in.) And he tried not to think at all for the first ten days of icy solitude in his tent, or later as he broke rocks in the sleety mountain rain with a twelve-pound sledge, wearing only a thin T-shirt and a pair of shorts, his hands and feet freezing.

  But when thought returned to Smith’s numbed brain at last, he began to regret his impulsive decision to remain a Legionnaire. Yes, what an idiot he’d been! Why hadn’t he gone off with Louise into the golden future? A house in Malibu or maybe San Francisco, bought with her money; his Ph.D. from UCLA, then the soft life of an academic. There might even be children someday. No. All gone.