Syndrome E

by Franck Thilliez

Leclerc jotted down some quick notes.

  “Very well. Right, then…I’ll write up the minutes of this meeting. Our priorities are: get the list of humanitarian aid workers present in Cairo in March 1994. I can take care of that. Inspector Péresse, you pursue the lead of human trafficking—you never know.”

  “Fine.”

  “You, Captain Kashmareck…”

  “I’ll keep working with the Belgians. And I have a serious murder case on my hands as well, with Claude Poignet. My teams are working full tilt. And vacations aren’t helping.”

  “Understood.” He turned to Sharko. “And you…”

  The inspector looked at his watch, then nodded toward Lucie.

  “We’re heading off to Marseille. The actress in the film has been identified. Her name is Judith Sagnol and she’ll certainly have something to say. Henebelle? Anything to wrap it up?”

  Lucie leafed through her memo book.

  “She’s now seventy-seven. She lives in Paris, but these days she spends a lot of her time at the Sofitel in the Old Port. She’s the widow and heiress of a former corporate attorney who became her husband in 1956, a year or two after the film was made. She appeared in a few pornos from the fifties and posed for nudie photos, calendars, and some 8 mm ‘home movies.’ According to the historian who identified her, she was no angel; she performed rather explicit sex acts in closed circles.”

  “Did this historian have any ideas about who owned the film?”

  “None. He doesn’t know where our reel came from or who made it. For the moment, that remains a mystery.”

  Sharko stood up, picking up his folder and his shoulder bag.

  “In that case, let’s hope Sagnol still has her faculties intact.”

  34

  Later that afternoon, the mistral was blowing hard over Marseille, a hot slap that deposited the Mediterranean ocean spray onto tanned faces. Sharko and Lucie walked down the Canebière, patched sunglasses and shoulder bag for him, small backpack for her. At that time of day and year, it was impossible to approach the Old Port in a car because of the mass of tourists. The sidewalk cafés were overflowing, faces and yachts paraded by, the atmosphere was festive.

  Or almost. Not for a second, during their trip down from Paris, had the two cops talked about anything but the case. The deadly reel, Szpilman’s paranoid behavior, the mysterious Canadian informant…An inextricable tangle of knots, where the leads and their conclusions never quite seemed to match up.

  Their hopes of unraveling the mess were now pinned on Judith Sagnol.

  She was living at the Sofitel, a four-star hotel that offered a fabulous view of the entrance to the Old Port and the magnificent minor Catholic basilica called Bonne Mère. In front of the establishment were palm trees, porters, and luxury cars. At the reception desk, the hostess informed the two “reporters” that Judith Sagnol had gone for a walk but had asked them to wait for her in the hotel bar. Lucie glanced anxiously at her watch.

  “Less than two hours before we have to head back…The last train to Lille leaves Paris at eleven. If we miss the 6:28 at Saint-Charles, I won’t be able to get home.”

  Sharko headed toward the bar.

  “These people like to make you wait. Come on, we can at least enjoy the view.”

  The receptionist came to find them around 5:30 at the poolside terrace to let them know Mme. Sagnol was expecting them in her room. Lucie was boiling mad. She went off to get some privacy, cell phone at her ear. The conversation with her mother was less difficult than she’d feared: Juliette had eaten well and her digestive system was more or less back to normal. If everything kept on like this, she’d be out the day after tomorrow. Finally, the end of the tunnel.

  “Will you manage by yourself until tomorrow?” Marie Henebelle asked her daughter.

  That was just like her mother. Lucie looked around toward Sharko, who was sitting alone at their table.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “I’ll figure it out. Can I talk to Juliette?”

  She exchanged a few affectionate words with her daughter. A smile now on her lips, Lucie returned to Sharko just as he was taking out his wallet.

  “Leave it,” she said. “This is on me.”

  “Suit yourself. I had just enough to cover it.”

  She paid for the beer and mint soda with a grimace: twenty-six euros and fifty cents. No standing on ceremony in this joint! They headed for the elevator.

  “How’s the kid?”

  “She should be out soon.”

  The inspector nodded slowly; he almost managed to smile.

  “That’s good.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Nice elevator, this…”

  They did not exchange a look or another word on the way up. Sharko stared at the buttons as they progressively lit, and seemed relieved when the door finally slid open. They walked down a long, muffled hallway, still silent.

  Lucie felt a shock when Judith appeared in the doorway. At almost eighty, the 1950s pinup had kept that dark, penetrating gaze she displayed in the film. Her irises were deep black, and her wavy, steel-colored hair fell onto bare, tanned shoulders. Plastic surgery had wreaked havoc, but couldn’t hide the fact that this woman had once been beautiful.

  Dressed lightly—plain blue silk dress, bare feet with nails polished cherry red—she invited them onto the balcony and ordered up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. The bedsheets were unmade, and Lucie noted the presence of a man’s underwear at the foot of a sink. No doubt a gigolo whose services she paid for.

  Once seated, Judith crossed her legs in the manner of a bored starlet. She did not apologize for keeping them waiting. Sharko didn’t beat around the bush and showed his official ID.

  “We’re not reporters but police. We’ve come to ask you about an old film you appeared in.”

  Lucie sighed discreetly, while Judith gave a mocking smile.

  “I figured as much. The reporter interested in my career hasn’t been born…”

  She looked at her manicured nails for a few seconds.

  “I quit acting in 1955. That goes back quite a way for stirring up old memories.”

  Sharko took a DVD out of his bag and put it on the table.

  “Nineteen fifty-five is perfect. It’s about the film burned onto this DVD. My colleague got the original from a collector named Vlad Szpilman. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “I noticed a DVD player and TV in your living room. May we show you the film?”

  She gave Sharko the once-over, with the same arrogant expression she’d used on the cameraman at the beginning of the famous short.

  “You’re not really leaving me a choice, are you?”

  Judith slid the disk into the drive. Seconds later, the film began. Close-up of the actress, twentysomething years old, dark lipstick, Chanel suit, looking straight at the camera. Clearly, seeing this was not to the septuagenarian’s liking. Her features tightened in an anxious expression. After the scene of the slit eyeball, she grabbed up the remote and hit STOP. She stood up sharply and went outside to pour herself some more champagne. Sharko and Lucie glanced at each other, then joined her on the balcony.

  The old voice was harsh, dry:

  “What do you want?”

  Sharko leaned against the railing, his back to the port and the amateur sailors polishing their craft down below. A hellish sun beat against his neck.

  “So was that your last film?”

  She nodded, her lips still pressed together.

  “We’ve come for information. Anything you can tell us about making the film. Its intent. About the little girl, the children, and the rabbits.”

  “What are you talking about? What children?”

  Lucie took out a photo of the girl on the swing and handed it to her.

  “This one. You’ve never seen her?”

  “No, no, never…Was she in the film too?”

  Lucie pocketed
the photo with an aftertaste of disappointment. The part involving Sagnol must have been shot separately. Judith brought the flute to her lips, took a small sip, then put her glass back down, eyes empty.

  “I didn’t know, and still don’t know, what kind of film Jacques asked me to be in. I was to shoot some sex scenes, and he paid me handsomely for it. I needed money. Any part was good enough for me. What they did with the images afterward wasn’t my business. When you’re in a trade like mine, you don’t ask questions.”

  She pointed to the champagne.

  “Help yourselves. It won’t stay chilled very long in this heat. There was a time when I’d have to work a month to afford a bottle of that stuff.”

  Sharko didn’t have to be asked twice. He refilled two glasses and handed one to Lucie, who thanked him with a movement of her chin. All things considered, a little alcohol wouldn’t hurt, after the ups and downs of the past few days. Judith let the memories seep in slowly.

  “I never thought I’d see those images again…”

  “Who made the film?”

  “Jacques Lacombe.”

  Lucie quickly jotted down the name in her memo book. They finally had a name: that, in itself, made their trip to Marseille worthwhile.

  “I met him in 1948. He was barely eighteen and he had a headful of big ideas. At the time, he was filming magic shows at a Paris music hall, the Trois Sous. He had an ETM P16 camera. I dressed and made up the dancers for the show.”

  She acted out the movements.

  “Bright red lipstick, blond wigs, see-through black lace dresses, not to mention the long Vogue cigarette…That was my idea, the cigarette—did you know that? It was all the rage at the time.”

  Her eyes wandered for a few seconds.

  “Jacques and I had a beautiful affair that lasted a year. I discovered a brilliant man, far ahead of his time. Tall, dark, eyes like the ocean. Very Delon.”

  She took a swallow of champagne without seeming to notice.

  “Jacques was a real cinematic innovator; he thought outside the box. For him, there were two ways to see a film: through the plot and the screenplay, or else, and more importantly, by the medium itself, which other filmmakers underused or didn’t know a thing about. He worked on the film itself. He’d scratch it, or poke holes in it, or streak it, or mark it up, or even burn it. For him, film wasn’t so much a surface to record images on but a virgin territory that he could inscribe to convey art. You should have seen him with a piece of celluloid. It was like he was holding a woman.”

  She smiled to herself.

  “Jacques was influenced by the early techniques of European avant-garde cinema, like double exposure, which was used by surrealist filmmakers like Luis Buñuel and Germaine Dulac. The slit eyeball at the beginning is taken directly from Dalí and Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou…It was a little tip of the cap to his influences.”

  Lucie was trying to write down as much as possible, but the old woman was speaking too fast.

  “He also hung out with magicians and became part of their inner circle. Houdini fascinated him, even though he was long dead. I remember how Jacques used the camera in fast motion to break down the movements of the magicians, pierce their secrets. He spent hours, days poring through the rushes, shut up in his little studio in Bagnolet. Pornography was another big interest of his; he dissected every shot, the mechanics of how images inspired pleasure. He had a phenomenal knowledge of montage, at a time when the available materials were pretty rudimentary, and he’d also invented a system of masks he attached to the lens. He made countless experimental mini-films, no more than a few minutes long, in which he managed to capture the viewer’s attention and unmask our relation to violence and art. Every time, I was captivated, shocked, amazed. But the public and the film world didn’t care for his genius or his work. Jacques really suffered from that lack of recognition.”

  Lucie cut in, taking advantage of this rush of memories.

  “Did he ever describe his techniques? Did he talk to you about subliminal imagery?”

  “No, he kept all his experiments secret. It was his private preserve. Still today, in the films of his that have been rediscovered, he did things even contemporary experimental filmmakers can’t figure out.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “Jacques wasn’t doing so well; he couldn’t catch a break. Producers gave him the cold shoulder. I watched him down gallons of vodka and live on hard drugs to keep going, working day and night. He lost interest in me, and we split up…It broke my heart.”

  She turned her eyes to the horizon, watched a cruise liner leaving the port, then returned to the conversation.

  “In the time we were together, he had introduced me to the mysteries of the cinema, but also to some rather disreputable characters. I was pretty well-endowed, with a slightly concave bust, like Garbo—people loved that at the time. So I started acting in erotic films to make a living.”

  She sighed. Sharko, wanting to take maximum advantage of the champagne, poured himself another flute. He calculated that each glassful was worth about thirty euros, which made it taste all the sweeter.

  “A year later, in 1950, Jacques went to Colombia to make The Eyes of the Forest, his one and only full-length feature. He’d managed to raise some paltry amount that barely covered his equipment and a small Colombian crew. The film ruined him for good. Because of it, Jacques got into all sorts of trouble with the French authorities and almost landed in jail.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. The Eyes of the Forest, you said?”

  “Yes. It was never officially released. Banned from the start. Today, you can’t find it; the existing copies were either destroyed or disappeared into the woodwork. Jacques had shown it to me once the editing was completed…” She grimaced. “It was a film about cannibals, one of the first of its kind, and he was very proud of it. But how could he be proud of such a horror? I had never seen such a vile, repulsive film in all my life.”

  Judith’s voice had become throaty. Sharko went to sit at the table, next to Lucie.

  “Why did he have troubles with the law?”

  “The Eyes of the Forest required weeks of shooting in the middle of the jungle, with the rain, the heat, and swarms of insects. The crews were completely cut off from the world. Filming conditions weren’t as comfortable back then as they are now. You went off with your camera equipment and a few tents over your shoulder. Some of the crew came down with various illnesses, from what Jacques told me. Malaria, leish-maniasis…”

  “But what did the law have to do with it?”

  She screwed up her face, uncovering teeth that were as perfect as they were false.

  “In the last third of the film, you saw a woman impaled on a spike, through her mouth and anus. It was a…an abomination, and so realistic! Jacques had to prove in court that the Colombian actress was still alive, and show how he’d created the illusion.”

  She poured herself some more champagne, evidently disturbed. To Sharko she looked like a rumpled bird, just an old woman trying to stop time in its tracks.

  “He didn’t come back the same from that miserable place; he had changed. As if the jungle and its shadows had kept their hold on him. Jacques had shot with natives, tribes who were seeing civilized people for the first time ever. I’ve never been able to forget one of the more shocking scenes in the film: heads lined up along the river, planted on pikes. God only knows what really happened there, in the dark reaches of that land of savages…”

  She rubbed her arms, as if she’d gotten a sudden chill.

  “When that film failed, it was yet another major blow for Jacques. Overnight, he vanished from the French film scene. He and I stayed in touch; we’d remained friends and I still had hopes of winning him back. But after a few months, I stopped hearing from him. One day I went to his studio. Jacques had packed up all his equipment and his films. His former assistant told me he’d left for the United States, just like that, with no warning.”

  “Do you know
why?”

  “It was unclear. The assistant was sure he had a huge project there. Someone had seen his films and wanted to work with him. But we never learned anything more. No one ever heard what had really happened to him.”

  “No one…except you.”

  She nodded, her eyes vacant.

  “It was 1954. Not a word for three years, then out of the blue I got a call. Jacques wanted me to come to Montreal. He had several days’ work for me, and he said he could pay me a fortune. I was busting my ass at the time, taking off my clothes for the camera more often than for a lover, just to earn peanuts. Filming in the nude never bothered me—I figured it was a good way to become a star. But you know how it is—lost illusions…I was experiencing the same setbacks as Jacques, getting parts in only the most pathetic films, for a bunch of real sleazeballs. So I agreed without thinking twice. I needed the cash. And besides, it was a chance to see him again—who knows, maybe even get back together. I asked him to send me the script, but he said I wouldn’t need one. So I took the plunge, sight unseen. He sent me half the fee, a plane ticket, and there I was, in Canada…”

  Anxiety had settled into her face. The two cops were hanging on every word. Lucie had stopped taking notes. Judith let herself be carried away by the champagne; her expression veered from anger to tenderness to fear. Everything was resurfacing, after fifty years buried deep.

  “The moment I landed in Canada, I knew I’d made a mistake. Jacques wore a look I’d never seen on a man. Lecherous, cold, indifferent. His head was almost shaved, and he looked unhealthy. He didn’t even give me a hug hello, after all the nights we’d spent together. He brought me to the place where they were shooting, without a word of explanation about his long years of absence, what he’d been doing. We came to some abandoned clothing factories just outside Montreal, I don’t know exactly where. There was only him, his camera equipment, and some people wearing gloves, dressed in black. I couldn’t see their faces—they were wearing ski masks. There were also mattresses, and several days’ worth of food. A room had been fitted up at the back of the warehouse…I understood that I was going to spend my days and nights in that dreadful place. And then I heard his voice. ‘Strip down, Judith, dance, and go with whatever happens.’ It was fall, I was cold and afraid, but I obeyed. I was being paid to. It lasted three days. Three days of hell. I suppose you’ve seen the sex scenes in the film, so you know what happened next…”