Big Brother was playing tour guide, pointing to the façade of one of the most famous universities in the world. As for Ra-chid, he was watching the female students who were coming out of their last classes of the day.
Night had fallen and only the cafés around the Sorbonne lit up the square where these long-haired enigmas were walking by. They intrigued Rachid.
Blondes, brunettes, redheads, tall ones, small ones, some wrapped up in warm clothes, some undressed in spite of the cold or because of the cold, with pink cheeks—they flashed by, their legs like rockets, flashed by like mercury to catch their bus, or to get swallowed up by the Metro, to disappear forever from the face of the earth for at least one night; for the next day, with the first gleam of light, these early-blooming bouquets would swing into motion again, stems in the morning wind.
Rachid was beginning to have a poetic soul. Was he getting all emotional from the contact with Paris, the City of Lights? Were Big Brother’s lectures beginning to bear fruit?
As for Big Brother, he didn’t give a shit about women, cared for them about as much as his first VD, which he got at fifteen from the wife of the super of his building, avid for youth and exoticism. Since then he’d had no time to waste on all that. He didn’t even have the means to do it anymore.
They stationed themselves in front of the first building on rue Gay-Lussac at the corner of boulevard Saint-Michel. Big Brother played the keyboard of the access code box, the big door opened, and they moved into the lobby. A friend in the post office who owed him one had given him the code. Life is hard for those men of letters and a little white powder livens up the deadest days. And then, everybody knows a mailman’s salary doesn’t cover the needs of a runny nose and a brain above it in withdrawal.
The superintendent wouldn’t be in, his cokehead friend had assured him. And it was true.
Big Brother looked up a few names on the mailboxes. He pushed a button on the intercom and waited. Nothing. They shouldn’t hang around too long, he knew. He tried another name. Silence. Then a crackle. He heard a sleepy, slow Yes, no doubt the voice of an old woman.
“Package for you, madame.”
“At this late hour?” said a suspicious voice.
“You areMadame Hauvet, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Special delivery, madame.”
“Fourth floor, first door on the left.”
The glass door gave out a shrill sound and opened.
They took the ancient cherrywood elevator. A little seat was folded up against one of the walls. There was hardly any room for Rachid and him. They hoped nobody had called the elevator on the second or third floor. It had already happened once. Big Brother had to look at his shoes without saying a word for a few seconds which seemed like centuries.
The car rose, then stopped at their floor. Nobody else had called it.
A second miracle was waiting for them on the landing: The door to the apartment had been opened for them.
What was the point of all those armored doors, codes, intercoms with cameras, if you let your guard down at the last minute, when the danger was at its height?
They walked into the apartment and closed the door behind them without a sound. They heard the old lady asking them to put the package on the table and leave.
Big Brother and Rachid did not have a package to put on the console table with a Carrera marble top. They weren’t about to leave the apartment either. Instead, they walked down the long hallway and entered a huge living room, to the great displeasure of the lady; her snow-white, carefully waved hair undoubtedly displayed the finest art of a very chic hairdresser.
“Ah, you probably want a little something?”
The woman got up, lifted her bag, and took out a purse. She opened it in front of them without noticing that they were not dressed like delivery men. She pulled out a five-euro bill and handed it to Rachid. He seemed the most approachable, perhaps because of his youth.
“We don’t want a tip,” said Big Brother, walking toward her. “We don’t want your charity.”
The voice that had uttered these words was sinister. The old lady realized this and her mouth opened wide.
“Whatever you do, madame, don’t scream.”
He showed her his hands and closed them in an oddly gentle way, as if they were already squeezing the woman’s neck. Then he motioned to Rachid, who walked over to their prey and began unwinding the string they’d bought in the Everything One Euro store a little further down the boulevard. He tied her hands behind her back, laid her out on the couch, and then tied her ankles together. They did not gag her.
“If you yell, you’re dead, you get me?”
The woman nodded, her mouth open and empty. Something couldn’t get through, the words remained stuck in her throat.
Big Brother walked out of the living room to explore the rest of the apartment. He went into a big kitchen and walked over to the counter. He opened a drawer and took out a large knife. Then he headed to the end of the hall, opening all the bedroom doors. In one of them, in the back, near the bathroom, he made a discovery that seemed to him, all things con- sidered, rather natural. He came back to the living room and spoke to Rachid in a low voice.
It was Rachid’s turn to go out. He crossed the hallway, passed by the kitchen, saw a second living room full of ugly vases and statuettes, then walked into the bedroom darkened by royal-blue cloth covering the walls. His eyes had to get accustomed to the lack of light to finally understand why he had to be there.
At the same time, Big Brother was pacing up and down the huge room with the knife in his hand, examining the paintings on the walls, the little Native American figurines, and even a Berber vase he picked up from its stand.
“That comes from Algeria,” said the quavering voice. “You can take it if you like. I’ll give it to you. It’s my father … You know, he loved that country. We had property over there.”
Big Brother put the vase down and walked up to the paintings.
“Jean Dubuffet,” he said, pointing to a portrait; it was highly simplified, almost mad—broken lines traced by a child of genius.
“You can take that too, you can take everything.”
Madame Hauvet was getting more and more restless on her couch. She was coming back to life. She thought she had identified a ransom. Everything would be all right again soon. He would take the painting and go away with his horrible sidekick. Perhaps she would offer him a few trinkets and it would all be over with.
“It’s fine right where it is,” Big Brother answered. “I won’t touch it. These works have a soul, madame. They belong to no one. They should be in a museum. And museums should be free.”
She didn’t understand: These drawings belonged to her and she could wipe herself with them if she wanted to. Her ransom had been devalued by those stupid words. These guys were total morons!
“You see, madame, I was sent to Yugoslavia during the war.”
“Oh! It must have been frightful,” she said, feigning great compassion. “You must have suffered a great deal.”
“Me? Oh no, don’t worry. But the Bosnian farmers, yes. They suffered a great deal, as you say.”
He stopped talking for a moment.
“Have you read Dante, madame?”
“When I was young. How boring!”
“Too bad,” he said, very curtly.
She was sorry she’d given her opinion about Dante. She had almost forgotten she was at their mercy. At hismercy. He terrified her. He was not like the others. Not like the ones you see on TV. The ones who had burned cars for two months. Those people were far from her world, far from her. This one was getting too close to be harmless, like the sun to the earth. He was in her home! In her home, my God! She’d been so dumb she felt like crying.
He interrupted her thoughts and began speaking again.
“Yes, madame, hell exists. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it in those devastated farms where everything had been looted, destroyed, trampled on. I’
m not talking about human beings, I’m talking about objects, madame, just objects. Believe me, they have a soul. Like you and me.”
He was preventing her from thinking. He was trying to distract her—worse, he was lecturing her. He horrified her now.
“So leave the paintings and take my jewels, take all of them. They’re in the safe, behind the Dubuffet you like so much. The key is stuck to the bottom of the frame.”
She was on the verge of hysteria.
“That is not very prudent, madame. Anybody could find it there.”
Rachid came back into the living room. He wasn’t alone anymore. When she saw him, Madame Hauvet began blubbering softly.
“Silence!”
He was accompanied by a pale girl. For Big Brother, she seemed to have come out of a Modigliani. For Rachid, she was just kind of skinny and tall. Above all, she was scared to death.
Her whole body was trembling, her eyes still foggy with sleep. She couldn’t be more than sixteen.
“That’s my darling granddaughter!”
The old woman was sobbing now.
“Shut the fuck up!”
She stopped sobbing and Big Brother turned the portrait over, removed the key, and opened the safe. Inside, an ebony box: He lifted the cover. Necklaces, bracelets, several pairs of earrings. He examined the contents under the light of a lamp and closed the little box of black wood again.
“I thought I could trust you,” he said. “You’re really disappointing me.”
“I don’t understand … no, I don’t understand.”
But she did understand. The jewelry was fake. That’s why she wasn’t protecting it. The Dubuffet was a copy as well. Big Brother knew that too. But he liked to give any human being a second chance, even a third one. In Bosnia he had learned that men and women in some places never even got the slightest chance.
He walked up to the old lady, turned her over on her belly, grabbed her hand, and cut off her little finger with the large knife. He threw it onto the white carpet. A spot of blood began flowering like a rose. He had stuck her head into the couch cushion to stifle her screams.
Rachid hardly had a chance to hold her up in his arms— the girl who looked like a Modigliani model fainted. He laid her gently out on the carpet.
When the old woman stopped moving, Big Brother turned her over so she wouldn’t get smothered to death. When she came to, he said, “Now let’s stop playing games. Where are the jewels?”
The old woman was trying to speak through bloody lips. She had bitten them out of pain. Pink bubbles welled up in her mouth and exploded on her chin. Big Brother had to put his face up close to hear her tell him where the jewels were.
He got up and this time walked over to a little writing desk. He ignored the only visible drawer, kneeled down, and stuck his head under the desk. He groped around and found it. He slid a little wooden panel and the precious objects tumbled onto the carpet. He picked them up and shoved them into the pocket of his Hugo Boss jacket. What cop would search a man dressed like him? Especially if he was coming back home in a taxi.
“I have some bad news,” he said to the old lady. “My friend and I cannot allow ourselves to be recognized. By anybody.”
“Oh my God! Oh, my God! I beg you. Please, I’m begging you. Let me live, please! I won’t say a word. I swear to you. I’m imploring you. I don’t deserve to die.”
“No one deserves to die, madame. And yet, one day or another … And just think: You have lived well up to now. You have never wanted for anything.”
“I implore you, for the love of God, take her!Take her. Take my granddaughter. Isn’t she beautiful? You’ll like her a lot, I’m sure of it. Please, please don’t kill me. I don’t deserve it. I’m giving her to you, take her!”
This kind of reaction no longer surprised him. It was, after all, a very human reaction. An old she-bear would have reacted differently, but not a grandmother.
“She deserves to live too,” he said very gently. “She’s so young. Consider what a long way she has to go in life. All the good things she can do for humanity. And believe me, I know something about humanity.”
The old woman began to spit blood.
“She’ll be of no use to anybody. She’s a slut. A lousy bitch.
She’s, she’s … she’s a whore, that’s what she is.”
Big Brother had heard enough and took care of the old woman.
The girl was still lying on the carpet, languid as an odalisque. She was beautiful. And she was sleeping like a princess in a fairy tale. Big Brother was happy she hadn’t seen all that. He was happy for her. Perhaps she would even sleep through her own night, a night without end, a night without glory.
BERTHET’S LEAVING
BY JÉRÔME LEROY
Gare du Nord
Translated by Carol Cosman
1.
Berthet and Counselor Morland are having lunch at Chez Michel on rue de Belzunce. Berthet and Counselor Morland have ordered fricassée of langoustines with cèpes as their first course, and grouse with foie gras as follow-up operations.
It’s autumn.
Berthet and Counselor Morland are men of the world before. Berthet and Morland favor only restaurants with seasonal products, and Berthet and Morland still believe in History, loyalty, and things of that nature.
Berthet and Counselor Morland know that they are out of step, but that’s just how it is. Berthet and Morland were born before the first oil crisis, and Morland way way before. Berthet and Morland are among those Europeans over forty who’ve been spared the microchip submission implant.
It would never occur to Berthet or Morland to find a temperature of twenty-seven degrees Celsius normal on the third of November.
It would never occur to Berthet or Morland that the market economy and its related carnage are not one big lie.
It would never occur to Berthet or Morland to eat sandwiches standing up or to listen to MP3 players plugged directly into their brains.
Berthet and Morland are informed of the coming end of the world.
Sometimes Counselor Morland jokes. This is rare for this high-ranking operative; also Protestant. Very rare. But it happens.
“Berthet,” Morland says, “I have a mistress who’s not even thirty, and you know, sometimes I feel like I’m gonna find myself in a USB port instead of her pussy.”
Berthet says nothing. Berthet is nervous. Berthet does not know Morland’s mistress and Berthet is not even sure Mor-land has a mistress.
What Berthet knows about Morland:
he has a cover as a European bureaucrat;
he has a tall, fuckable wife who teaches philosophy at
the French high school in Brussels;
he has no children;
he has twenty-five years’ service in The Unit, at a very high level;
he has a predilection that does him credit for the literature of the unlucky, forgotten ’50s writers Henri Calet and Raymond Guérin;
he has a slightly less honorable predilection for the complete repertoire of the singer Sacha Distel;
he’s Berthet’s boss;
he’s a good guy, almost a friend.
“What’s wrong?” Berthet finally says. “It’s not like you to talk pussy.”
“The Unit’s ditching you,” says Morland. “They’re after your hide. And fast.”
Before the fricassée of langoustines with cèpes, Berthet and Morland had ordered a bottle of champagne as an aperitif. Drappier brut, zero dosage.
Berthet and Morland are eating some excellent charcuterie and drinking the champagne, which actually tastes like wine—something always surprising in a totally ersatz era.
“When?” asks Berthet.
“Say what you will,” says Morland. “When they start making pinot noir with this kind of expertise, there’s almost hope for the survival of the human race.”
“When?” repeats Berthet, who agrees on the zero dosage and the pinot noir as a sublimation of the vinous quality of the champagne and who
even enjoys it, but who’s nevertheless somewhat upset by Morland’s information.
“When what?” says Morland, who pours them each another glass of champagne. “When are they going to kill you or when was the decision made?”
“Both,” says Berthet.
Berthet might say, Both, mon général,as the joke goes in the French army. Except that it wouldn’t be a joke. Morland is a one-star general, though not many people know it, and he probably hasn’t worn a uniform in thirty years. Morland’s cover is counselor to a European Commission member in Brussels.
Berthet and Morland look at each other.
At Chez Michel, you always feel you could be in the provinces. Rue de Belzunce is calm—a small, clean, narrow tear in the continuum formed by the Gare du Nord, boulevard Magenta, and rue Lafayette. The setting is pure Simenon. Berthet has never liked Simenon. Morland always has.
“I’m going back to Brussels on the Thalys train—come with me. We’ll plead your case …”
“That way, you’ll just have an easier time bumping me off.”
“You’re making me sad. I’m risking my life to warn you.”
They finish the champagne, the charcuterie. The fat of a Guéméné sausage relaxes Berthet, reassures him for a moment about the possibility of his body’s enduring power, almost as much as his 9mm Glock in the shoulder holster and his Tanfoglio .22 in its ankle case.
Berthet doesn’t answer. Berthet asks for the wine list. A blond waitress comes over. Berthet gets a hard-on. This is a sure sign. Death is on the prowl. Berthet concentrates on the choice of a white to go with the fricassée of langoustines with cèpes. Berthet decides on a Vouvray. Dry. La Dilettante, from Cathy and Pierre Breton.
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