for Rudy Modiano
for Mother
‘Why was I identified with the very objects of my horror and compassion?’
Scott Fitzgerald
Contents
Book 1
A burst of laughter in the darkness. The Khedive looked up.
‘So you played mah-jongg while you waited for us?’
And he scatters the ivory tiles across the desk.
‘Alone?’ asks Monsieur Philibert.
‘Have you been waiting for us long, my boy?’
Their voices are punctuated by whispers and grave inflections. Monsieur Philibert smiles and gives a vague wave of his hand. The Khedive tilts his head to the left and stands, his cheek almost touching his shoulder. Like a stork.
In the middle of the living room, a grand piano. Purple wallpaper and drapes. Large vases filled with dahlias and orchids. The light from the chandeliers is hazy, as in a bad dream.
‘How about some music to relax us?’ suggests Monsieur Philibert.
‘Sweet music, we need sweet music,’ announces Lionel de Zieff.
‘“Zwischen heute und morgen?”’ offers Count Baruzzi. ‘It’s a fox trot.’
‘I’d rather have a tango,’ says Frau Sultana.
‘Oh, yes, yes, please,’ pleads Baroness Lydia Stahl.
‘“Du, du gehst an mir vorbei”,’ Violette Morris murmurs plaintively.
The Khedive cuts it short: ‘Make it “Zwischen heute und morgen”.’
The women have too much make-up. The men are dressed in garish colours. Lionel de Zieff is wearing an orange suit and an ochre-striped shirt. Pols de Helder a yellow jacket and sky-blue trousers, Count Baruzzi a dusty-green tuxedo. Several couples start to dance. Costachesco with Jean-Farouk de Méthode, Gaetan de Lussatz with Odicharvi, Simone Bouquereau with Irène de Tranze . . . Monsieur Philibert stands off to one side, leaning against the window on the left. He shrugs when one of the Chapochnikoff brothers asks him to dance. Sitting at the desk, the Khedive whistles softly and beats time.
‘Not dancing, mon petit?’ he asks. ‘Nervous? Don’t worry, you have all the time in the world. All the time in the world.’
‘You know,’ says Monsieur Philibert, ‘police work is just endless patience.’ He goes over to the console table and picks up the pale-green leather-bound book lying there: Anthology of Traitors from Alcibiades to Captain Dreyfus. He leafs through it, and lays whatever he finds between the pages – letters, telegrams, calling cards, pressed flowers – on the desk. The Khedive seems intently interested in this investigation.
‘Your bedside reading, mon petit?’
Monsieur Philibert hands him a photograph. The Khedive stares at it for a long moment. Monsieur Philibert has moved behind him. ‘His mother,’ the Khedive murmurs, gesturing to the photograph. ‘Isn’t that right, my boy? Madame your mother?’ The boy echoes: ‘Madame your mother . . .’ and two tears trickle down his cheeks, trickle to the corners of his mouth. Monsieur Philibert has taken off his glasses. His eyes are wide. He, too, is crying.
Just then, the first bars of ‘Bei zärtlicher Musik’ ring out. A tango, and there is not enough room for the dancers to move about. They jostle each other, some stumble and slip on the parquet floor. ‘Don’t you want to dance?’ inquires Baroness Lydia Stahl. ‘Go on, save me the next rumba.’ ‘Leave him alone,’ mutters the Khedive. ‘The boy doesn’t feel like dancing.’ ‘One rumba, just one rumba,’ pleads the Baroness. ‘One rumba, one rumba!’ shrieks Violette Morris. Beneath the glow of the chandeliers, they flush, turning blue in the face, flushing to deep purple. Beads of perspiration trickle down their temples, their eyes grow wide. Pols de Helder’s face grows black as if it were burning up. Count Baruzzi’s cheeks are sunken, the bags under Rachid von Rosenheim’s eyes puff bloated. Lionel de Zieff brings one hand to his heart. Costachesco and Odicharvi seem stupefied. The women’s make-up begins to crack, their hair turning ever more garish colours. They are all putrefying and will surely rot right where they stand. Do they stink already?
‘Let’s make it brief and to the point, mon petit,’ whispers the Khedive. ‘Have you contacted the man they call “La Princesse de Lamballe”? Who is he? Where is he?’
‘Do you understand?’ murmurs Monsieur Philibert. ‘Henri wants information about the man they call “La Princesse de Lamballe”’
The record has stopped. They flop down on sofas, on pouffes, into wing chairs. Méthode uncorks a bottle of cognac. The Chapochnikoff brothers leave the room and reappear with trays of glasses. Lussatz fills them to the brim. ‘A toast, my friends,’ suggests Hayakawa. ‘To the health of the Khedive!’ cries Costachesco. ‘To the health of Inspector Philibert,’ says Mickey de Voisins. ‘To Madame de Pompadour,’ shrills Baroness Lydia Stahl. Their glasses chink. They drain them in one gulp.
‘Lamballe’s address,’ murmurs the Khedive. ‘Be a good fellow, mon petit. Let’s have Lamballe’s address.’
‘You know we have the whip hand,’ whispers Monsieur Philibert.
The others are conferring in low voices. The light from the chandeliers dims, wavering between blue and deep purple. Faces are blurred. ‘The Hotel Blitz is getting more diffcult every day.’ ‘Don’t worry, as long as I’m around you’ll have the full backing of the embassy.’ ‘One word from Count Grafkreuz, my dear, and the Blitz’s eyes are closed for good.’ ‘I’ll ask Otto to help.’ ‘I’m a close personal friend of Dr Best. Would you like me to speak to him?’ ‘A call to Delfanne will settle everything.’ ‘We have to be firm with our agents, otherwise they take advantage.’ ‘No quarter!’ ‘Especially since we’re covering for them!’ ‘They should to be grateful.’ ‘We’re the ones who’ll have to do the explaining, not they!’ ‘They’ll get away scot free, you’ll see! As for us . . .!’ ‘They haven’t heard the last of us.’ ‘The news from the front is excellent. EXCELLENT!’
‘Henri wants Lamballe’s address,’ Monsieur Philibert repeats. ‘Make a real effort, mon petit.’
‘I understand your reticence,’ says the Khedive. ‘So this is what I propose: to start with, you tell us where we can find and arrest every member of the ring tonight.’
‘Just a little warm up,’ Monsieur Philibert adds. ‘Then you’ll find it easier to cough up Lamballe’s address.’
‘The raid is set for tonight,’ whispers the Khedive. ‘We’re waiting, mon petit.’
A yellow notebook bought on the Rue Réaumur. Are you a student? the sales girl asked. (Everyone is interested in young people. The future is theirs; everyone wants to know their plans, bombards them with questions.) You would need a flashlight to find the page. He cannot see a thing in this light. Thumbs through the notebook, nose all but grazing the pages. The first address is in capital letters: the address of the Lieutenant, the ring-leader. Try to forget his blue-black eyes, the warmth in his voice as he says: ‘Everything OK, mon petit?’ You wish the Lieutenant were rotten to the core, wish he were petty, pretentious, two-faced. It would make things easier. But there is not a single flaw in that rough diamond. As a last resort, he thinks of the Lieutenant’s ears. Just thinking about this piece of cartilage is enough to make him want to vomit. How can human beings possess such monstrous excrescences? He imagines the Lieutenant’s ears, there, on the desk, larger than life, scarlet and criss-crossed with veins. And suddenly, in a rushed voice, he tells them where the lieutenant will be tonight: Place du Châtelet. After that, it comes easily. He reels off a dozen names and addresses without even opening the notebook. He speaks in the earnest voice of a good little schoolboy from a fable by La Fontaine.
‘Sounds like a good haul,’ comments the Khedive. He lights a cigarette, jerks his nose towards the ceiling, and blows smoke rings. Monsieur Philibert has sat down at the desk and
is flicking through the notebook. Probably checking the addresses.
The others go on talking among themselves. ‘Let’s dance some more. I have pins and needles in my legs.’ ‘Sweet music, that’s what we need, sweet music.’ ‘Let everyone say what they want to hear, all of you! a rumba!’ ‘“Serenata ritmica”.’ ‘“So stell ich mir die Liebe vor”.’ ‘“Coco Seco”.’ ‘“Whatever Lola wants”.’ ‘“Guapo Fantoma”.’ ‘“No me dejes de querer”.’ ‘Why don’t we play hide-and-seek?’ A burst of applause. ‘Great! Let’s play hide-and-seek!’ They burst out laughing in the dark. Making it tremble.
Some hours earlier. La Grande Cascade in the Bois de Boulogne. The orchestra was mangling a Creole waltz. Two people came into the restaurant and sat down at the table next to ours. An elderly man with a pearl-gray moustache and a white fedora, an elderly lady in a dark blue dress. The breeze swayed the paper lanterns hanging from the trees. Coco Lacour was smoking his cigar. Esmeralda was placidly sipped a grenadine. They were not speaking. This is why I love them. I would like to describe them in meticulous detail. Coco Lacour: a red-headed giant, a blind man’s eyes sometimes aglow with an infinite sadness. He often hides them behind dark glasses, and his heavy, faltering step makes him look like a sleepwalker. How old is Esmeralda? She is a tiny little slip of a girl. I could recount so many touching details about them but, exhausted, I give up. Coco Lacour and Esmeralda, their names are enough, just as their silent presence next to me is enough. Esmeralda was gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the brutes in the dance band. Coco Lacour was smiling. I am their guardian angel. We will come to the Bois de Boulogne every night to savour the soft summer. We will enter this mysterious principality of lakes, wooded paths, with tea-houses hidden amid the dense foliage. Nothing here has changed since we were children. Remember? You would bowl your hoop along the paths in the Pré Catelan. The breeze would caress Esmeralda’s hair. Her piano teacher told me she was making progress. She was learning musical theory through the work of Josef Bayer and would soon be playing short pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Coco Lacour would shyly light a cigar, shyly, as through apologising. I love them. There is not a trace of mawkishness in that love. I think to myself: if I were not here, people would trample them. Poor, weak creatures. Always silent. A word, a gesture is all it would take to break them. With me around, they have nothing to fear. Sometimes I feel the urge to abandon them. I would choose a perfect moment. This evening, for example. I would get to my feet and say, softly: ‘Wait here, I’ll be back in a minute.’ Coco Lacour would nod. Esmeralda would smile weakly. I would have to take the first ten paces without turning back. After that, it would be easy. I would run to my car and take off like a shot. The hardest part: not to loosen your grip in the few seconds just before suffocation. But nothing compares to the infinite relief you feel as the body goes limp and slowly sinks. This is as true of water torture as it is of the kind of betrayal that involves abandoning someone in the night when you have promised to return. Esmeralda was toying with her straw. She blew into it, foaming her grenadine. Coco Lacour was puffing on his cigar. Whenever I get that dizzying urge to leave them, I study each of them closely, watching their every movement, studying their expressions the way a man might cling to the low wall on a bridge. If I abandon them, I will return to the solitude I knew in the beginning. It’s summertime, I told myself, reassuringly. Everyone will be back next month. And indeed it was summer, but it seemed it dragged on in a strange way. There was not a single car in Paris. Not a single person on the streets. Sometimes a tolling clock would break the silence. At a corner in a sun-drenched boulevard, I thought that this was a bad dream. Everyone had left Paris in July. In the evenings, they would gather one last time on the café terraces along the Champs-Élysées and in the Bois de Boulogne. Never did I feel the sadness of summer more keenly than in those moments. July is the fireworks season. A whole world, on the brink of extinction, was sending up one last flurry of sparks beneath the foliage and the paper lanterns. People jostled each other, they spoke in loud voices, laughed, pinched each other nervously. You could hear glasses breaking, car doors slamming. The exodus was beginning. During the day, I wander through this city adrift. Smoke rises from the chimneys: people are burning their old papers before absconding. They don’t want to be weighed down by useless baggage. Rivers of cars stream toward the gates of Paris, and I, I sit on a bench. I would like to join them in this flight, but I have nothing to save. When they’re gone, the shadows will suddenly loom up and form a circle around me. I will recognise a few faces. The women are heavily made up, the men have the elegance of Negroes: alligator shoes, brash suits, platinum rings. Some even have a row of gold teeth on permanent display. Here I am, left for the tender mercies of dubious individuals: the rats that take over a city after the plague has wiped out the populace. They give me a warrant card, a gun licence and tell me to infiltrate a ‘ring’ and destroy it. Since childhood, my life has been littered with so many broken promises, so many appointments I did not keep, that becoming a model traitor seemed like child’s play. ‘Wait there, I’ll be right back . . .’ All those faces seen for one last time before darkness engulfs them . . . Some could not believe I would desert them. Others eyed me with an empty stare: ‘Are you really coming back?’ I remember, too, that peculiar twinge of regret whenever I looked at my watch: they’ve been waiting for me for five minutes, ten, twenty. Maybe they have no yet given up hope. I would feel the urge to rush off to meet them; my head would spin, on average, for an hour. Grassing people up is much quicker. A few brief seconds, just the time it takes to reel off names and addresses. An informer. I’ll even become a killer if they want. I’ll gun down my victims with a silencer. Afterwards, I will consider the spectacles, key rings, handkerchiefs, ties – pitiful objects that are insignificant to anyone but their owner and yet move me more deeply than the faces of the dead. Before I kill them, I will stare fixedly at one of the lowliest parts of their person: their shoes. It would be wrong to think that only a flutter of hands, an expression, a look or a tone of voice can move you at the first sight. The most moving thing, for me, are shoes. And when I feel remorse for killing them, it is not their smiles or their virtues I will remember, but their shoes. Anyway, doing dirty work for corrupt cops pays well these days. I’ve got money spilling out of my pockets. My money helps keep Coco Lacour and Esmeralda safe. Without them I would truly be alone. Sometimes I think that they do not exist. That I am the red-headed blind man, that tiny defenceless girl. A perfect excuse to feel sorry for myself. Give me a minute. The tears will come. I’ll finally know the pleasures of ‘self-pity’ – as the English Jews call it. Esmeralda was smiling at me, Coco Lacour was sucking on his cigar. The old man and the elderly lady in the dark-blue dress. All around us, empty tables. Paper lanterns someone forgot to hang out. I was afraid, every second, of hearing their cars pull up on the gravel driveway. Car doors would slam, they would slowly lumber towards us. Esmeralda was blowing soap bubbles, watching them float away, her face set in a frown. One bubble burst against the elderly lady’s cheek. The trees shuddered. The band struck up the first bars of a czardas, then a fox trot, then a march. Soon it will be impossible to tell what they’re playing. The instruments hiss and hiccup, and once again I see the face of the man they dragged into the living room, his hands bound with a belt. Playing for time, at first he pulled pleasant faces as through trying to distract them. When he could no longer control his fear, he tried to arouse them: made eyes at them, bared his right shoulder with rapid, twitching jerks, started to belly-dance, his whole body trembling. We mustn’t stay here a minute longer. The music will die after one last spasm. The chandeliers will gutter out.
‘A game of blind man’s buff?’ ‘What a good idea!’ ‘We won’t even need blindfolds!’ ‘It’s dark enough.’ ‘You’re it, Odicharvi!’ ‘Scatter, everyone!’
They creep around the room. You can hear the closet door open. They’re probably plannning to hide there. It sounds as if they’re crawling around
the desk. The floor is creaking. Someone bumps into a piece of furniture. A face is silhouetted against the window. Gales of laughter. Sighs. Frantic gestures. They run around in all directions. ‘Caught you, Baruzzi!’ ‘Hard luck, I’m Helder.’ ‘Who’s that?’ ‘Guess!’ ‘Rosenheim?’ ‘No.’ ‘Costachesco?’ ‘No.’ ‘Give up?’
‘We’ll arrest them tonight,’ says the Khedive. ‘The Lieutenant and all the members of the ring, EVERY LAST ONE. These people are sabotaging our work.’
‘You still haven’t given us Lamballe’s address,’ murmurs Monsieur Philibert. ‘When are you going to make up your mind, mon petit? Come on now . . .’
‘Give him a chance, Pierrot.’
Suddenly the chandeliers flicker on again. They blink into the light. There they are around the desk. ‘I’m parched.’ ‘Let’s have a drink, friends, a drink!’ ‘A song, Baruzzi, a song!’ ‘“Il était un petit navire”.’ ‘Go on, Baruzzi, go on!’ ‘“Quin’avaitja-ja-ja-ja-maisnavigué . . .” ’
‘You want to see my tattoos?’ asks Frau Sultana. She rips open her blouse. On each breast is a ship’s anchor. Baroness Lydia Stahl and Violette Morris wrestle her to the ground and strip her. She wriggles and struggles free of the clutches, giggling and squealing, egging them on. Violette Morris chases her across the living room to the corner where Zieff is sucking on a chicken wing. ‘Nothing like a tasty morsel now rationing is here to stay. Do you know what I did just now? I stood in front of the mirror and smeared my face with foie gras! Foie gras worth fifteen thousand francs a medallion!’ (He bursts out laughing.) ‘Another cognac?’ offers Pols de Helder. ‘You can’t get it any more. A half-bottle sells for a hundred thousand francs. English cigarettes? I have them flown in direct from Lisbon. Twenty thousand francs a pack.’
‘One of these days they’ll address me as Monsieur le Préfet de police,’ the Khedive announces crisply. He stares off into the middle distance.
The Night Watch Page 1
