by John Brooke
The more he talked, the less he said. The best response to that was silence.
He added, ‘Margot Tessier has helped resolve some things, in her own fashion, of course.’
‘Which things?’
‘Things that fall into her area of expertise. Last year Nabi Zidane closed down a group with links to some angry imams. Got one of the imams booted back to Algeria — that’s not easy. Took about a year to fix it. Margot played a part in that.’
‘What part?’
‘If Nabi knows, he’s not telling.’ She waited. Sergio shrugged. ‘I don’t think he really knows.’
‘I hate that.’
A larger shrug. ‘DST. All you can really do is roll with it.’
‘I don’t want to roll with it. My case is my case. ‘Come...’ gesturing him out of the street and into the silent house. Madame Fortuno was back in her doorway, appraising their every move.
He was apprehensive. ‘You know you really shouldn’t do this until the papers are all signed.’
‘Sorry. There was steam from the bathroom. I sensed an emergency.’
‘Of course…’ Pausing to look at Stephanie McLeod from blurry childhood through to the crystalline heights of l’École Nationale d’Administration. Almost as an aside, he wondered, ‘How was the funeral?’
‘Big.’
‘Meet Roland Bousquet?’
‘He thought my presence was in very bad taste.’
‘Well, you had to try…’ Instructing Judge Regarri stopped his tour of the McLeod salon and turned to face a worried inspector. ‘Did I mention you look great?’
She smiled. She would believe Margot Tessier’s shitty spying was not his fault.
She related her encounter at the market, the news from Valras. ‘Means it’s almost sure this Prince is the one in the system.’
He was nodding his agreement as he bent over the kitschy Ericofon. ‘Amazing!’
‘Straight out of the seventies. I actually had one.’
‘And this thing too.’ The old answering machine beside it. ‘Anything interesting here?’
‘Just a chef in a panic.’
He listened to Roig’s frantic call twice and drew the same conclusion as she: The DST team must have stopped there first and he’d tried to warn Stephanie McLeod. Aliette held her breath, waiting to see if her judge’s investigative instincts would move him in the same direction as hers. But no — he did not wonder why there was only one message — at least not out loud; and he did not take apart the phone. He continued poking through the McLeod family keepsakes.
The inspector chose not to enlighten him as to the erasure of her call, or the presence of a retro listening post inside the retro phone. Professionally, it was a sin not to make her judge immediately aware. She was attracted to this man, but unclear where he stood in relation to Agent Tessier. Obviously pals of a sort. Functionally, Sergio Regarri embodied one of those strands of logic that grew more opaque the harder you looked. The only clear thing was that Margot Tessier was not her friend — she might need leverage if she hoped to hold her own against the spook. She would keep the bug in the phone in reserve until she had a better feel for the bigger picture. In the meantime, Sergio Regarri would have to prove his allegiance to her.
They could start on that with an early supper in lieu of a Sunday lunch.
· 14 ·
NIGHT IN A ROOM
Prince’s voice: quiet, insistent, shifting between accented French and an odd English.
‘Hey, Steph. Where are you? Give us a call.’ Click.
‘It’s Friday. We’re having a little get-together. Just friends. Love to see you, luv.’ Click.
‘What’s the matter, Steph? Was it something I said? Just call. We can talk it out’. Click.
‘Our relationship can’t end, Steph. We need each other. And the world needs us.’ Click.
‘You’re wrong about my friends not giving a damn about you, Steph — very wrong. People are people, darlin’. You have to give them time. They’re good kids — just like you. They care, Steph. They’ve put time and energy into our project. They won’t naturally come looking to a new girl for advice. You have to build trust. Work your way into their hearts and minds. Surely they taught you that at ENA. Please, give us call. We can work this out.’ Click
‘No bullshit, Steph. You’re reading it all wrong. And I know more than anyone what we’d be giving up if we let you drift away. My friends are committed. I mean willing to go the distance. But none of ‘em has anything like what you got up in that lovely noggin of yours. None of ’em’s the next Ulrike. Eh, Steph? Everyone’s got a purpose, luv. Don’t walk away from yours.’ Click.
‘You’re making me sad, Steph. Everyone’s ready to party. But we need you, luv.’ Click.
The woman turned off the machine. ‘What is noggin?’
‘My voicemail is private. You are abusing my rights.’
The woman rolled her eyes. Dream on. ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know! I didn’t like him. I left. C’est tout.’
‘The next Ulrike… Is he serious?’
‘He thought I look like her. Surely that’s not my fault.’
‘It could be.’
‘You sound like some kind of totalitarian Stasi Nazi freak.’
‘You sound like an absurd child. You’re supposed to be a very smart girl…I mean, ENA?’ With a bewildered shrug, the woman held up the old market bag the McLeods had used for years. Exhibit one? She removed a stack of magazines and spread them across the table. Old weekly news journals, mostly French — Paris-Match, VSD, Le Point, Le Nouvel Observateur…but also copies of Stern, Der Spiegel, Panorama, Espresso. Very old — yellowed, going back thirty years. They shared one obvious thing: a cover feature on the German radical Ulrike Meinhof.
‘Those are my mother’s.’
‘But you read them.’
‘I looked at them. Everyone does.’
‘But why?…Why keep these old things? What do they have to do with a life of picking grapes and other odd jobs in an unknown village in the south of France? Can you tell me?’
It was a good question. Stephanie McLeod stared at the ceiling, forming a reply. ‘It was my mother’s way of telling me where she came from without having to actually tell me.’
‘She never talked to you about Ulrike Meinhof?’
‘Never in so many words.’
The woman nodded, perhaps sympathetic. ‘You have a mother who idolized Ulrike Meinhof, a terrorist implicated in the murder of several innocent people…a mother who was herself a rather low-grade terrorist in her own right, if my information from Canada is correct. A mother who changed her name and went to hide in a hole with a father who changed his…’ Stephanie shrugged placidly. ‘So what does that make you? …Mademoiselle Burns?’
Stephanie spat out, ‘I am not my mother!’
‘Nor am I mine, my dear. But it is a bit of an ongoing battle, no?’
‘My mother is dead.’
‘And so is the poor mailman who opened the box where she left her little bomb.’
‘That was never proved. My mother is dead and her file is closed. Or should be.’
‘But her shrine to the cause remains,’ replied the woman, offering a table full of glossy magazines.
Stephanie blinked. She felt her face heating, tears gathering.
‘And you have this boyfriend who’s a wanted terrorist, who has this idea of you as the next Ulrike Meinhof. It seems we’re trapped in history here. Why is this?’
‘I have no control over his fantasies. Men are so — ’ Stephanie cut herself off.
‘No, you don’t,’ the woman agreed. ‘But what about your own?’
The question froze her. She was numb, never so embarrassed in her life.The woman rose and began to pace the room. ‘This is what I think. I think p
arents want to give their children a sense of the world their children find themselves in. That’s normal. But not all parents are optimistic. Some are downright angry — because their own lives have made them that way. Bright or dark, kids latch on. That’s normal too. They want to. They need to. Yes?’
‘I have never wanted anything remotely resembling my mother’s world. I — ’
But Stephanie choked on her objection. She had no idea if she was telling the truth or not. She had lived her entire life on a borrowed name. The steady click of the woman’s heels against the tiles were the only sound as Stephanie breathed and fought to keep her heart from bursting.
The woman said, ‘Intergenerational identification is uniquely human. Did you know that, Stephanie? I bet you do, I bet it’s one of the first things they teach you in Poli Sci at ENA. No animal does such a thing. Dogs are weaned; they don’t know their mother. But kids hear stories, see pictures — psychologically, they grow into the same group Ma and Pa were part of, the same imagined communities are extended down through time. And that’s a lovely idea — what they call values education, yes? Except where you get babies strapping on bombs, more than willing to be martyrs to the cause. And except when you have bright young women imagining themselves to be the next Ulrike Meinhof. Then it all seems rather tragic, if not perverse. Better to be a dog?’
Stung, Stephanie reiterated, ‘I am not my mother. And I am not Ulrike Meinhof.’
‘There is a law in this country against associating with known criminal groups,’ the woman shot back. ‘Sleeping with is the same as planting bombs with, Stephanie.’
‘I don’t even know his name!’ Stephanie wailed. She broke down in sobs.
The woman left the room, leaving her alone to stew in her tears.
·
How long?... Stephanie wiped her tears and sat there. She focused on the spines of books lining the shelves behind the woman’s desk. Law books, bound reports with long titles and government stamps. Inevitably, she wondered, were they watching her? She looked furtively over her shoulder. It occurred to her that she could go through the woman’s computer, her desk — at least learn this horrid woman’s name and official status. It was all right in front of her.
Or she could walk out — she’d heard no latch when the woman left.
But Stephanie McLeod realized she didn’t dare. She was frozen where she sat.
Scared gutless.
·
The woman returned with water and a sandwich for Stephanie. It was no act of kindness. Then she got right back to it, digging, berating, mocking, constantly dropping in these sidebars on group-think, peer pressure, post-modern revolution. She maintained her show of bewildered puzzlement, reprising the central question. ‘Why? ENA? You could be sitting on top of the world. Your life could be a piece of cake. Instead, here you are, swimming in shit.’
Stephanie washed the sandwich down and told her, ‘You have all this information, your parallels and patterns. But you can’t see my heart.’
The woman almost smiled. ‘Now that’s a good point. Your heart. Let’s move on to your heart. What are you, Stephanie? I mean in your deepest heart? Leave aside your mother, the separatist, your financial kamikaze papa. How do you see yourself?’
‘My mother was a revolutionary. My papa — ’
‘Was a selfish idealist who destroyed the hopes and plans of probably millions of people.’
‘He temporarily delayed the plans of a tiny group of totally soulless money-pigs!’
‘He broke the law in twelve different countries. As for your mama, the police in Canada say separatist, possibly a terrorist. But, please, Stephanie — it’s you. Now. Here in France. What are you? Activist? Militant? Revolutionary? Anarchist? A judge will want something to wrap her thoughts around when she prepares her sentencing.’
‘I…’ The thought of a judge waiting for an explanation stopped her brain again.
The woman reached for a book in the case behind her. She flipped to a page. ‘An activist is someone who takes vigorous action to further a cause. A militant is aggressively active — combative in support of a cause. Are you a militant or an activist?’
‘I don’t have a cause.’
‘No? Look...’ Putting the book down, she hit some keys on her laptop and turned the screen to share the result. Stephanie’s original message to the Friends.
To: Friends. I am so tired of bullshit. What sort of Action do you advise?
‘They advise bombs, Stephanie. This is common knowledge.’
‘I have no cause.’
‘Bon. That would make you an anarchist. Destruction for destruction’s sake?’
‘No…’ Her denial sounded dull. But anarchy was dull. It had no shape. Stephanie managed to hold the woman’s remorseless eyes. She hated her. But she needed to give an account of herself. ‘I’m an idealist. I am sick of cynical, selfish men in power. Is that a crime?’
‘It’s not so much what you think, it’s what you do, my girl. A judge might buy it. For my money, I’d say you’re a little too calculating to be an idealist…The judge would have this, of course. For reference?’ She placed a page in front of Stephanie. A copy of her letter to Joël Guatto. The CPNT platform and its ideas and goals are very much in line with my own thinking these days… ‘What is your thinking, Stephanie? Can you define your goals and aspirations?’ The woman hit more keys. ‘And a judge would have this…’ Turning the screen to share again.
Stephanie glumly confronted her failed attempt to exhort, then goad and finally insult Joël Guatto into an open fight with Roland Bousquet… Time to put your balls on the table, monsieur!
The woman sniffed. ‘And Prince. Will he put his balls on the table?’
‘I don’t know!... We are no longer in contact. I want nothing more to do with Prince.’
‘And isn’t it sad? Another disappointing man.’ She sighed, ironic, continuing to puzzle it. ‘Maybe you are a revolutionary, Stephanie. Like Ulrike. You think big ENA-trained thoughts. You have a well-honed sense of strategy. But Prince, self-described revolutionary, he might be just another directionless anarchist. I can see how that would be frustrating.’
‘I made a mistake.’
The woman nodded, ‘And so?’
Stephanie pleaded, ‘What else do you want from me?’
‘The truth. Your anger doesn’t matter. Your hopes and dreams even less. Here,’ handing her more printed pages. ‘…God knows what a judge will think of this.’
Stephanie nodded in weary recognition. The Just Friends manifesto. They never told her who wrote it. Maybe they didn’t know. When sullen Liz passed a copy to the new recruit, she’d asked, ‘Can you deal with this?’ Two months ago, Stephanie McLeod had believed she could.
We stand in front of the world that made us and ask, Where has civilized society gone? Where are the fully grown human beings? Psychology has transformed the suffocating mother into a witty ‘best friend,’ the tyrannical father into a perplexed purveyor of HUGS. The family unit has moved from regimented cadre to enabler en groupe, a social configuration where dependency rules, where everything is familiar and SAFE. Where to be self-sufficient is to pass an hour without ‘checking in.’ We protest a world where perpetual children leave the nest in search of a boss, a soft world deliberately shaped to make passion appear aberrant, at best fictional. They want to use the ‘familiarity’ of the biological family as an excuse to make us renounce the possibility of growing up, as well as everything that is serious in childhood. We will smash against that sentimental perpetuity. We will watch the world fall to pieces and proclaim that the decomposition of all social forms is a blessing, the ideal condition for a wild, massive experimentation with new arrangements, new fidelities, a world that demands a precocious lucidity and foreshadows lovely revolts to come…We will —
Stephanie let the Friends manifesto fall from her fingers. It went on
like that for three full florid pages. No corrupted stone was left unturned.
‘Lovely revolts to come…’ The woman replaced the pages in her file. ‘It sounds so romantic, Stephanie... Did you read that together in bed?
‘He has his beliefs.’ In fact, they had.
‘And you — what do you believe? Do we really have to blow it up?’
‘I believe men like Roland Bousquet make it seem like garbage.’
‘And is he the target?’
‘Oh, mon dieu!’
·
The only break was a walk to the toilet, accompanied by her horrible host. They peed side by side. On the way back to the woman’s office they detoured into a room with a long window built into the length of one wall. ‘Who are they?’ Jules in one room. Suzi in another.
‘Jules and Suzi. Or whatever. None of them use their real names.’
‘No, and neither do you. Yes?’
·
Then more gruelling back-and-forth, trying to convince the woman that false IDs were all she knew of the two Friends from somewhere in Tarn. ‘I haven’t been there… I have no idea where it is. I hate the Tarn! Wednesday, at the condo. That’s when I knew for sure it was not right for me. I left. I went home. I did not intend on going back… I got my boss to hide me from them in case they came looking. He called. Prince. I did not reply… You heard that. Please!’
Her interrogator sat back, studied her. ‘Fine. Not right for you. But what are they planning? Before you walked away, you were part of it, Stephanie. We know this.’
‘I don’t know!’ She calmed herself. ‘They wouldn’t tell me. You heard him… it’s a trust thing. That’s why I started to withdraw. They spend so much time doing nothing. Just talking …talking, talking, talking. It’s very boring.’
‘They were testing you.’
‘Well, I failed.’
‘And you don’t even know his name.’
