Death by Publication

by J. J. Fiechter

  Death by Publication

  Death by Publication

  A MYSTERY

  J. J. Fiechter

  ARCADE PUBLISHING • NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1993 by Editions Denoel

  North American edition copyright © 1995, 2013 by Arcade Publishing, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-61145-794-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Zic and Nours

  “Noblesse Oblige”

  But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love.

  —Virginia Woolf, The Waves

  Chapter 1

  Should one believe in premonitions? This morning, while I was still half asleep, I thought I heard a switch click on that would start the wheels of destruction turning.

  I didn’t even try to banish the evil spirits from my mind. With my eyes closed, I let them do their demonic dance in my mind, chanting over and over again: “Nicolas Fabry is going to win the Goncourt Prize. . . . Nicolas Fabry is going to win the Goncourt Prize. . . .” And in my heart of hearts I knew the evil spirits were right.

  The pale morning light cast a mournful pall over the already distressing furniture of my hotel room. I had made it a habit over the past several years to take an autumn trip to France, to Vichy more specifically, to escape the all-pervasive London fog, but this time I had managed to bring the fog along with me. It was All Saints’ Day, and beyond the hotel-room curtains a blanket of fog all but obscured the garden paths. The fog was a dirty gray, the color of my bitterness at knowing that Nicolas was going to walk away with that most prestigious of literary prizes, the Goncourt. Last night every radio station I tuned in to was proclaiming that Nicolas was the odds-on favorite. Which should have delighted me, for not only had I anticipated it, I had counted on it. It was my fate hanging in the balance, too, and Nicolas’s victory was essential to my plan. Now all I had to do was find the courage to carry it out. But I was depressed, and everything I did only made it worse: walks in the well-manicured Vichy parks, which were still green despite the season; the firemen’s concerts in the colonnaded park bandstands; even the sacrosanct spa waters. Nothing worked.

  The telephone wake-up call roused me from my half sleep.

  “Good morning, Sir Edward. It’s seven-thirty.”

  I ordered a hearty breakfast—orange juice, tea, eggs and bacon, buttered toast. I was famished. Then I drew a bath. Today I had to have all my wits about me. Especially today. My visit to Vichy had not been a resounding success. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, and the image that stared back at me was hardly flattering: my skin had a leaden cast to it, and there were deep dark circles under my eyes. And yet I detected a bright new spark. Or, rather, a spark that had long been missing and was back again. Despite the solemnity—indeed, the dead seriousness—of the moment, I could not refrain from smiling at the mirrored image. I was smiling at the thought that soon, very soon, there would be a complete reversal of roles, of which I would be the architect. Or should I say author? All things considered, even though I looked a little green around the gills, I wasn’t all that bad looking, I decided. True, the hairline was receding, but it made me look serious, even distinguished. And those green eyes were not something you ran into every day. Stop being so hard on yourself, Edward. If only you took the trouble, you could be as attractive and seductive as anyone. You too had a writing talent. So you’ve just turned fifty and haven’t yet written your masterpiece. Who says you still can’t? And speaking of masterpieces, just because Nicolas Fabry’s previous novels have been best-sellers doesn’t make them masterpieces. In fact, it probably proves they weren’t.

  The room-service waiter knocked on the door and brought in my breakfast tray. Portuguese, I knew from his previous visits. Thin as a reed, and all buttoned up in his pin-striped hotel uniform. I looked at him as if at someone in a window display. I didn’t even greet the man, and as he was leaving the room I snapped my fingers at him imperiously, a throwback to my years in Egypt. He turned around, annoyed.

  “Sorry,” I said, holding out a fifty-franc note as tip.

  He pocketed the bill, then said very formally, in heavily accented English, “Thank you, Sir Edward.” His use of my title and my own language pardoned my lack of tact, but I had been warned: from now on I would have to be constantly on the alert. The least little slip or loss of self-control could be my undoing. To date I had an almost legendary reputation for being even tempered, displaying at all times the stolid impassivity of the English aristocracy. Now was certainly not the time to deviate from it.

  By eight-thirty I had paid my bill. A taxi was waiting for me outside the hotel, and I clambered into it with an uncharacteristic feeling of urgency. Was it possible I was running a fever? I was boiling hot, and the taxi seat was full of uncomfortable ridges. The driver seemed to be driving with deliberate slowness. I was sure I was going to miss my train, and I began to drum my fingers on the back of the front seat, which doubtless irritated the man. He too was Arab, just like Yasmina. Yasmina . . .

  In fact I almost did miss my train. I barely had time to grab an armful of newspapers and magazines at the station and hop onto the train before the doors closed behind me. I stowed my valise on the luggage rack of the compartment, then settled down and began to peruse the weekly news magazines, more to take my mind off my anxiety than to find out what was going on in the world. It wasn’t all that easy. The first magazine I opened, Paris Match, had as its cover story a long article on—who else?—Nicolas Fabry.

  The photographs themselves should have sufficed to double the magazine’s circulation. What woman could have resisted that limpid, knowing gaze, which burrowed straight into the viewer’s soul; or that winning smile, with just the right mixture of swagger and self-deprecation; or that brow, crowned by dark curly hair, that bespoke the conquering hero? The carefully clipped beard was to my mind a trifle ridiculous, but it rounded out the image. Operation Narcissus. Carefully crafted casual, in my view. The photos had been taken several months earlier, at Fabry’s villa on the Riviera. The choicest part of the Riviera, I should add. You could see the Mediterranean pines in the near background, and in the distance the sparkling blue sea itself. The subject himself was sportily dressed, but he was wearing a tie, which was pulled down and slightly askew below the open collar of the shirt. Early in the interminable interview, Fabry revealed himself to be scandalously nonchalant about his “career.” Could he comment for the readers about his years as a diplomat? There wasn’t much to say, really. He had been in the diplomatic corps, true, but that was a long time ago, and besides, it was in another country. Sir Edward wondered how many readers, if any, would get Fabry’s not-so-subtle allusion to T. S
. Eliot. Next the man would be comparing himself to Joyce. Or maybe Proust. The diplomatic phase of his life, Fabry confided to the interviewer, had been due more to chance than to family tradition. But from his earliest diplomatic assignments on, his official functions had interfered with the creativity he had always felt welling up within him.

  What followed was less interview than personal confession, as Nicolas explained to what degree his new novel marked not only a departure from but a complete break with his earlier work.

  “I wanted this book to be a statement of absolute authenticity, a work that would offer an image of me that is completely fair and accurate, without the slightest artifice or indulgence. An image as authentic as what you see here before you: on one side the peaks of the Esterel mountain range, on the other the Bay of Angels, with the sea stretching beyond as far as the eye can see. . . .”

  It would be unfair to repeat the full extent of Fabry’s smug, egotistical revelations, which bordered on parody. As for myself, all I retained was the man’s overwhelming desire for redemption. An unconscious desire, no doubt. For what did Nicolas want to be forgiven? For having lived a completely artificial life, dedicated solely to himself and his own aggrandizement. And, I might add, to the destruction of others.

  At the stroke of noon I rang the doorbell of Nicolas’s apartment on the rue Valois, his most recent indulgence. Everything in my education and background forbade me from calling on people—even close friends—without prior warning.

  Nicolas’s butler, Emile, answered my ring.

  “Good morning, Sir Edward,” he said, as if my sudden appearance was the most natural thing in the world. “Mr. Fabry is in the living room.”

  I made my way down the long hallway. Nicolas, curious as to who had rung, was standing in the doorway.

  “Well, well! Edward, what brings you here unannounced?”

  “You don’t think I was going to fail you in a moment such as this!”

  “What a surprise! What a pleasant surprise!” he said, but his tone suggested exactly the contrary. He barely took the trouble to shake my hand before he turned his back, leaving me standing there awkwardly in the hallway, completely taken aback. I remember thinking that Nicolas generally reserved his boorishness for his women. But his lack of manners suited me; I was in no mood for false effusions.

  I sauntered into the living room to find Nicolas surrounded by a bevy of women. I noted the presence of his press secretary, whom I already knew, plus several other beauties I had never laid eyes on before. They were all clustered around an enormous television set, chattering like magpies as they watched the end of a news program on some far-distant war about which no one gave a good goddamn. The tall bay windows looked over the well-tended gardens of the Palais-Royal. Colette used to live in this building, I recalled. I wondered if Fabry had bought this apartment with that in mind; perhaps he thought it would further legitimize his literary claims. Or should I say pretensions? In any case, the apartment was imposing, its interior decoration a curious amalgam of a Moscow subway station and the lobby of a major Swiss bank—neo-something-or-other. On one wall was an enormous pink painting signed Klein. The sofas were of white suede; the tables, set very low, were of black lacquer and looked like so many oversize chess pieces judiciously deployed over the black-and-white marble floor.

  I enjoyed watching Nicolas move from one square to another, one chess piece to the next, one woman to another, passing out compliments and casting fatal glances in his wake. I didn’t have to hear him to know what he was saying; his desperate, overwhelming need to seduce gave him an unerring gift for the right words.

  I was sizing up this spectacle when the press secretary suddenly realized I was there. With a professional reflex she threw her arms around me and exclaimed, “Oh, Sir Edward, how delightful to see you!”

  Her pleasure seemed sincere, as my unexpected arrival could only be taken as a good omen. I had a considerable reputation as a discoverer of talent, a man with unusual flair for ferreting out manuscripts. That I was on the scene was proof positive that Nicolas would win the Big Prize.

  She took my arm and paraded me across the room, into the heart of the storm.

  “This is Sir Edward Destry,” she trumpeted, “the great English publisher. May I introduce Sabine d’Amecourt from the Literary Gazette. And this is Virginia Coretin of Vogue. And next to her is Nora Afnazi—”

  And my heart began to beat uncontrollably. My eyes were locked on those of the Middle Eastern beauty as though I had been hypnotized. The woman’s gestures, her voice, her every movement, held me in thrall. I had the impression that I had seen them before. What distant emotion were they awakening in me? What long-buried memory was her presence unearthing? And yet I had given up any interest in women ages ago. Why was this Nora an exception? I was incapable of saying. My heart was still pounding, out of control. Images and feelings rose in my mind, pell-mell, fleeting and unclear, as in a dream one tries to seize and cannot. Then everything came into focus: Nora was Yasmina, my Yasmina. The same eyes, the same gentleness, the same savage slenderness.

  I could not believe that she was in this room simply by chance; it could only be a sign of fate.

  The telephone in the study rang, and Nicolas rushed over to answer, the smile on his face suddenly frozen in a kind of grimace.

  Several seconds passed; he looked as if he was going to drop dead, struck down by apoplexy. Then he said matter-of-factly, “I’m on my way.” He turned round to the assembled throng. He was pale beneath his summer tan.

  “I’ve got it,” he managed in a throaty voice.

  His female sycophants rose to their feet as one and buried him beneath a flurry of effusive embraces. Only Nora Afnazi remained serenely seated where she was, refusing to take part. Then she too vanished, with the rest of the harem and the prizewinner himself, whom I had not even had time to congratulate. I stood there alone in front of the television screen. The doors of the Drouant restaurant, where the voting for the Goncourt Prize had taken place, swung open. A dense throng of reporters, photographers, and curious onlookers blocked the exit. Flashes lit up the screen as the photographers vied for the best picture. The president of the jury stepped up to the cluster of microphones and, his eyes blinking in the glare of the lights, announced:

  “After eight rounds of voting, this year’s Goncourt Prize has been awarded to Nicolas Fabry for—”

  The rest of his words were drowned out in the ensuing uproar. Nicolas and his feminine entourage hurriedly donned raincoats, gathered up umbrellas, and headed out the door.

  I had no interest in following them. Emile, perfect and impassive, started to close the doors to the study.

  “No, Emile,” I said. “Leave the door ajar.” Apparently, Emile had not heard my request.

  “Emile,” I repeated, “ajar, if you please. I would like to see the rest of the television announcement regarding the prize.” Actually I had no interest whatsoever in the remaining protocol. I had other plans entirely regarding the study. I switched off the television and headed for Nicolas’s study. I took from my briefcase three books yellowed by age and slipped them into the back of the already overloaded top shelf of the enormous bookcases that spanned the wall from floor to ceiling, each between several other books. This graft consisted of three titles: Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, Clemence Dane’s Legend, and The Need to Love by a certain C. Irving Brown. Then I left the Palais-Royal apartment and walked to Gaillon Square, where the Drouant restaurant was located.

  The restaurant was besieged, and Nicolas, who was standing arm-in-arm with his French publisher Laurent Millagard, looked as if he was about to suffocate. But all the earlier emotion was gone. Once again he looked like a blasé conquistador condescending to receive the homage of the tribes he had just vanquished, and he spoke to the journalists with the self-importance of the Paris Match interview, evoking his redemption as an author who, as he put it, had been threatened by the very success of his work to date, “not, mind you, that he
was turning his back on that body of work, not at all. But with this new book he felt he had managed to attain an important new level as an innovator, a level he had long dreamed of but which till now had eluded him.”

  He threw everything in but—as the Americans say—the kitchen sink. His life till now, which he described as that of an “inspired nomad”; his “search for truth”; his son, whom he had not had the time to really know; the women in his life, who had loved him and helped guide him toward his cherished goal. . .

  “With this book,” Fabry went on, “I believe I have given an authentic vision of myself. I would like to stand aside and let the pages of Il faut aimer speak for me—what? The size and number of the printings? Of course they’re substantial, but I really don’t care about that. More than anything, I have a sense of accomplishment, of fulfillment. For the first time in my life I feel in complete accord with my inner self. . . .”

  At that point the rain began to fall, slicing through the forest of microphones and scattering the majority of the reporters. Only the truly faithful ignored the watery onslaught and continued hanging on his every word. Fabry held forth for the remaining few as his press secretary tugged on his sleeve.

  “Come along, Nicolas, they’re waiting for us at the radio station.”

  They had to shove him into a waiting car to take him to the studios of glory, leaving me alone in the driving rain with his French publisher, drenched to the skin but deliriously happy. He was on cloud nine. It was all I could do to keep him from breaking into song—“Singing in the Rain” would doubtless have been his choice, but at the risk of being a killjoy I said that all this racket had given me a migraine. Yes, yes, I knew I was old-fashioned, from another era, but the fact remained that all this ballyhoo, this media blitz, was abhorrent to me. All of which wasn’t very nice of me, I realized, so I tried to make up for it by remarking that this coronation was, after all, the result of our working together for twenty years.