‘In my country,’ someone said, ‘nothing worked. Everything was always rotten. Everything crumbled and every year the whole country crumbled a little more.’
He said this tenderly, as though talking about a wayward child. Then each in turn began to talk about his past.
‘How did you get here, Sila?’ asked Céline. ‘You’ve never told us what happened.’
Sila sidestepped the question. He said only that he had stowed away on a ship.
‘You were lucky not to be thrown overboard,’ said someone.
‘And to get into France.’
‘Things aren’t easy in France. They’ve gotten tougher.’
‘These days you’re better off going to Canada.’
And everybody nodded. ‘Oh yes, Canada is the place to go.’
They talked about Canada. As it was a country none of them had been to, they had a lot to say.
Céline interrupted, her sing-song tone even more pronounced.
‘That’s not true. France is a good place. I’m telling you, France is good. Look at the police when they come here. They are nice, they wish us no harm. When I had my first child, I had no papers, but in the hospital, they asked no questions. France is a good place, I’m telling you. But they don’t want people to know that, so they shout and they talk tough and they say they don’t let anyone in. But tough talk is nothing.’
Everyone hesitated. Céline’s words had an air of authority. Besides, when you came down to it, they knew nothing at all about Canada. It was simply that someone had mentioned it. They didn’t care about it now.
‘Anyhow,’ a Congolese man said thoughtfully, ‘many people still try to come here. You know about the man who was sent back? The one with the bandages?’
This was a story that had done the rounds.
‘Tell the story, not everyone knows it.’
‘This guy,’ the Congolese man went on, ‘he knew that people who were injured were always allowed in. The doctors never deported them, or at least not until they were well again. So this guy, he wrapped himself in bandages, he looked like a mummy, and he was being pushed in an old wheelchair. But the cops, they weren’t fooled, they peeled away the bandages and the guy took off like a rabbit.’
‘Like a rabbit,’ someone echoed, ‘wearing nothing but his underpants, running around trying to get away from the cops.’
Everyone laughed at this story that was so much like their own.
‘Wait, wait. What about the man who fell from the plane … He was hanging on to the wheels, and when they got to Charles de Gaulle airport and the pilot lowered the landing gear he wrapped his arms around the axle and hung on for dear life, but in the end he let go and he fell from all the way up there.’
‘All the way up there?’
‘I don’t know how high, but I know he fell, he couldn’t hold on, every bone in his body was broken.’
‘Broken?’
‘Shattered in a thousand pieces!’
The man doubled up with laughter.
‘But at least he’s in France now like the rest of us. They treated him, put him in a plaster cast up to his neck, but he’s fine, he’s happy as Larry, they feed him well at the hospital.’
‘Happy as Larry,’ they all roared in unison, smiling and laughing, as though this terrible story was the funniest thing in the world.
6
‘We need to look at the big picture. We need to start making money.’
Simon, still half asleep, hardly reacted. They were having breakfast on the big terrace. Matthieu stood up, wearing only boxer shorts, looked out over the city and adopted an imperious air.
‘Money! Lots of money! We are the masters!’
Matthieu’s grandiloquence when he talked sometimes verged on the ridiculous. Simon shot his friend a questioning look, wondering if he was being ironic.
‘I’m telling you, I’m not going to keep working for them for ever. I’m sick and tired of working for a bunch of arseholes.’
‘Arseholes?’
‘Yeah, arseholes. They pay me nothing when I’ve given them everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything. The contact list they’ve got is thanks to me, no one else would have given it to them. And how much do they pay me?’
‘How much do they pay you?’
‘Peanuts. And you’re no better.’
‘No better?’
‘Stop repeating everything I say and listen. You’re a great scientist, Simon. Probably the best in your lab. I’m sure one day they’ll give you the Fields Medal.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’ Simon puffed out his chest. ‘That’s like the Nobel Prize for maths.’
‘I’m telling you, you’ll win it. But what good will that do you? You’ll go on working on your little equations, you’ll go on being a researcher earning fifteen thousand a month …’
‘No way, I’ll be Research Director at the CNRS taking home twenty-five thousand a month!’
‘Same difference, Simon. I’m talking about a different world, I’m talking about real money, my friend. I’m talking filthy lucre. Enough money to fulfil all your desires.’
‘I’ve fulfilled all my desires. I like my job, I live a comfortable life in an apartment I like and I don’t deny myself anything. Life’s fine, thanks very much.’
‘You’ve got no ambition, Simon. I’m talking about a different world. More exciting, more thrilling. No more equations.’
‘Maths is very exciting. You know nothing about it.’
These conversations, or rather these monologues delivered by Matthieu, had been happening with increasing frequency. The line of attack varied a little, but in the end they all came down to the same thing: money. Matthieu didn’t have enough of it and Matthieu wanted lots. Simon could sense in his friend a dark desire, a dissatisfaction, a thirst for recognition which fired him up with this protean ambition – something all the more strange since Matthieu did not have expensive tastes. True, he liked to dress well and he liked the terraced apartment. But that was all. And yet, having no personal ambition, he wanted what other people wanted: money. The word summed up a different life, a different world, one that was indefinable but surely happy.
Simon didn’t listen. Or rather he tried not to listen. But into his carefully circumscribed universe Matthieu’s words trickled their acid like the vague, inchoate hope of some new horizon. The chimera of desire, that mythical and modern monster, cast its huge shadow. Simon’s temperament had so many flaws that he needed to stay in his simple, abstract universe. If he strayed outside, he would be lost. But steadily the acid was eating away at the restraints …
‘I don’t know anything about it, but I can imagine.’
Matthieu, belly pressed against the guardrail, flexed his biceps.
‘Has anyone ever told you you’re preposterous?’ said Simon.
‘All the time. Dozens of girls have told me that. And half an hour later they were in my bed.’
Simon thought of Julie and felt a twinge in his stomach. ‘Are you going to see her again?’
‘See who?’
‘The girl from the other night. Julie.’
‘No. We had a good time, but she doesn’t want to see me again. She said she has a lot of work. Said she likes me, but she’s got too much on. And she’s afraid that if she’s with me she’ll get nothing done. She’s not wrong.’
He flexed his biceps again.
‘Are you sorry not to see her again?’
‘Yes and no. I enjoyed our time together on the roof,’ he said with a smirk, ‘I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.’ His voice returned to its usual emotionless tone. ‘But I think it was the fact that it was short-lived that made it special.’
Matthieu lay down and closed his eyes, soaking up the sun. His body, hardened by long hours at the gym, was tanned from his many sessions out here on the terrace. But now he lay down because he could feel one of his black depressions coming on. Matthieu was possessed of a strange, conv
ulsive energy that alternated between periods of intense brightness and bouts of bleak darkness as if a light had suddenly gone out. The same anxiety that led him to pontificate about money could sometimes crush him and leave him in a stupor. He was a creature with no foundations, constantly trying to shore himself up by flirting with women and dreaming of money.
He spent that whole day brooding, tormented by God knows what thoughts. He got up only to get a drink of water and put on sunscreen. At lunch, he barely ate and seemed agitated.
Simon was used to these moods and did not take offence. He had some work, which he did in his room, then watched the Tour de France on television. Late in the afternoon, he changed to go running. As a boy, even as a teenager, he had never played sports; for the most part he had been excused from playing since everyone thought him permanently sickly. But in late adolescence, for no particular reason, he had become much stronger and it was simply out of habit that the ageing family doctor went on writing sick notes. Simon had not become an athlete, but he found that certain things like running suited him, and in fact he got into the habit of running once or twice a week. The Bois de Vincennes wasn’t far from the apartment, so he regularly went running there.
He took his Dutch bicycle down in the lift, rode out onto the avenue and down to the woods. There, after a few conscientious stretching exercises, he began jogging slowly, paying no attention to the faster runners, who passed him, of whom there were quite a few that Sunday. He ran for thirty-one minutes, a private joke he’d shared with Matthieu. ‘The body starts to burn fat after thirty minutes,’ he said, ‘so I run for thirty-one and burn one minute’s fat. It’s not exactly like I’ve got much fat to lose.’
At some point, a black arrow zoomed past Simon, leapt over a tree trunk and disappeared in a flash. The speed was incredible and astonished the various other runners in the area. ‘The guy must be an Olympic champion,’ thought Simon. INSEP, the training centre for professional athletes, was near the Bois de Vincennes. Simon found this a satisfactory explanation. He went on running and completed his circuit within the time allotted. Then he headed back to the apartment on his bike.
Matthieu hadn’t moved an inch. He was lying naked on the terrace, soaking up the sun. When the sun finally began to set, he stood up, shook himself and went to take a shower. He walked back through the apartment, still naked.
‘You could throw a towel round you,’ Simon said.
‘Why bother,’ muttered Matthieu. ‘It’s not like we don’t know each other.’
Then he watched television, something he rarely did. Surprising as it seemed, Matthieu preferred reading to watching television, and in fact he had excellent taste, much better than Simon, whose taste in books had changed little since he was thirteen.
Then he got ready to go to work. He did not have to go to Le Miroir every night but frequently went just the same, though Simon didn’t understand why, since Matthieu was constantly telling him it was boring. He emerged from the bathroom slicking down his wet hair, a familiar gesture that marked his entry into the fray. Every night was a battle to be won. Against all comers.
He arrived at Le Miroir just before midnight and chatted to the bouncers on the door. There was no queue yet, Sunday was usually a quiet night. But the club was hip enough to attract a crowd every night.
Tonight was no exception. And Matthieu Brunel rose to the challenge. He smiled, he strutted, he joked … He was everything he had not been during the day. He waged his daily war and it was impossible to tell whether the man who had spent all day on the terrace was merely a double or whether the real doppelgänger was this charming, beaming puppet moving easily among the crowds. In fact, there was no double, there was only this character of shifting moods and appearances in search of his reflection.
He headed down to the toilets. The stairway was wide and carpeted in red. Anyone who wanted a little peace and quiet came down here and it was always heaving. A tall, elegant young man turned to him.
‘How’s things?’ Matthieu asked.
‘Banging night. Bet you’re happy.’
Matthieu nodded. A very young man emerged from the toilets, eyes shining, and high-fived Matthieu, who gave him a smile. For the past couple of months, almost by accident, and at first simply as a favour, as he put it, Matthieu had set up a coke-dealing service in the club toilets and now checked that everything was running smoothly. Le Miroir, like every club, had customers and dealers. Matthieu merely facilitated contact between the groups. In return, he made a decent percentage. Call it a service charge. He liked the dealer, who was well-mannered and refined. Qualities that seemed sufficient to Matthieu. Who wouldn’t want an upmarket dealer?
He went back upstairs. He crossed to the bar and ordered an orange juice. The pulsing strobe lights swallowed up the mass of bodies and spat it out again. He should, he thought, dive into the throng, find a girl. But, as often these days, he didn’t. As often, he realised that he didn’t want to chat, to joke, to do the rounds as usual. He was better off on his own. He knew that a quick drink or a trip downstairs would put him in the mood, but he found even the idea exhausting. The surge of energy he had felt as he emerged from the bathroom back at the apartment was already starting to fade. But all it would take was one drink. Just one glass of something other than orange juice. Just to get the spark going. After that, it would be plain sailing.
But he stuck to his orange juice. He did the rounds again, greeted people, shook hands. He really should go running tomorrow, he thought. Like Simon. It would be good for him. A tall, pretty girl was dancing. Their eyes met. He wanted to go over and talk to her. The problem was the first word. All he needed was the first word. Matthieu always claimed with a sort of innocent, infantile arrogance that, for him, girls were easy. Offer to buy them a drink, find somewhere to sit, job done. But tonight, he couldn’t think of the first word. Serious writer’s block. What was the first word? Their eyes met again and Matthieu realised he didn’t need to be a great writer, just a mediocre hack, a pencil-pusher.
But he did not say the first word. He went home early. And he didn’t go running the next morning.
7
‘Mr President, you simply don’t have the resources. We are everywhere. Give us the power and we will restore order in Russia and the CIS.’
Lev remembered the words on the poster he had been shocked to see on the streets of Moscow. The Russian mafia brazenly flaunting its power a few short years after the collapse of the police state.
Communism had crumbled and the instruments of power had not survived. The Red Army’s vast resources had been sold off to conflicts around the world by corrupt administrations, arms dealers and the Russian mafia while former KGB agents sold their services to the highest bidders, often joining the gangs. The black hole. Here was the black hole again, engulfing vast swathes of the former empire, breaking down borders, depleting resources, swallowing up men and souls in a universal entropy.
And now here was this fat, half-bald man, head shaved, standing in front of him, the embodiment of the shift of power. Here he stood in Lev’s Moscow office, in his tower, amid all the trappings of power, in front of Lev’s staff, making this dangerous proposition without a flicker of hesitation.
‘I could have you kicked out. I could call my bodyguards.’
‘Of course, Councillor Kravchenko,’ the man said, smiling, ‘but I’d simply come back through the window.’
On his thickset face, the smile was a rictus. ‘A wrestler,’ thought Lev, ‘they seem to have a lot of them.’ He remembered the wrestling tournaments he used to go to with his father, a fervent enthusiast. He had stared in admiration at these colossal men with their scars, their heavy, lumbering strength capable of extraordinary speeds. These days, he was meeting many of the idols of his childhood. But there was nothing admirable about them any more.
‘And why would I trust a Chechen?’ asked Lev.
‘I anticipated such a question, Councillor, though, if I may say, it does you no credit. The f
irst reason is simple: Chechens are highly competent, a fact recognised around the world.’
‘They’ve flooded Western Europe with cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy,’ thought Lev, ‘they’re in every nightclub.’
‘We can offer you absolute protection,’ the wrestler continued. ‘Private security firms, as you know, are not always very trustworthy. They can be poorly organised, too small and employ individuals of a somewhat flexible morality.’
‘Whereas you on the other hand are of the utmost integrity?’
‘Absolutely,’ the man said without a trace of irony. ‘We guarantee our clients’ security at the risk of our own lives.’
On this point at least, Chechens had an excellent reputation, so much so that they had sold Slavic gangs the right to use the term ‘Chechen’ as though it were a franchise.
‘So we come to the second reason, which is … more delicate,’ the man went on. ‘But everyone knows that Councillor Kravchenko is a man of great delicacy. It concerns your friend, Councillor Litvinov.’
‘What’s the connection?’
‘Everyone also knows that your friendship is … tenuous.’
‘I still don’t see the connection.’
‘Of course you see the connection, Councillor, you see it perfectly clearly. You simply want the fat oaf in front of you to spell it out. You want to see the fat oaf getting in deeper. You are familiar with your friend’s krysha?’
‘The Slavic Brotherhood.’
‘Our most serious competitors. They are tough, organised men with intelligent leaders.’
‘Yes, and they’re Russians. Why shouldn’t I go to them?’
Sila's Fortune Page 7
