‘We’ll soon stop competing, ourselves, you know. A little matter of twelve bullets, pursuant to Article 57.’
They had just listened to the last radio bulletin and the news was ‘even more alarming than usual’.
‘As I understand it,’ Delvale said, ‘we should be preparing the speeches we’ll make in front of the firing-squad. .’
For nearly a quarter of an hour, they played this game. Delvale thought that ‘Vive la France catholique, all the same!’ would have the best effect. Marcheret swore he’d shout ‘Try not to ruin my face! Aim for my heart and try not to miss, it’s broken!’ Remy would sing ‘Le Petit Souper aux chandelles’, and if he had time, ‘Lorsque tout est fini’. . Murraille would refuse the blindfold, insisting he wanted to ‘see the comedy through to the end’.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, ‘to be talking about such stupid things on Annie’s wedding day. . ’
And, to lighten the atmosphere, Marcheret made his ritual joke, about ‘Maud Gallas having the finest breasts in Seine-et-Marne’. He had already begun to unbutton her blouse. She did not resist, she went on leaning at the bar.
‘Look. . Take a look at these beauties!’
He pawed them, popped out of her brassiere.
‘You’ve no need to be jealous,’ Delvale whispered to Monique Joyce. ‘Far from it, my child. Far from it!’
He tried to slip his hand into her blouse but she stopped him with a nervous little laugh. Annie Murraille, greatly excited, had subtly hiked up her skirt allowing Lucien Remy could stroke her thighs. Sylviane Quimphe was playing footsie with me. Murraille filled our glasses and said in a weary voice that we seemed in good spirits for men about to be shot.
‘Have you seen this pair of tits!’ Marcheret was saying again.
Moving across to join Maud Gallas behind the bar, he knocked over the lamp. Shouts. Sighs. People were taking advantage of darkness. Eventually someone — Murraille, if I remember rightly — suggested that they’d be much better off in the bedrooms.
I found a light-switch. The glare of the lights dazzled me. There was no one left except us. The heavy panelling, the club chairs and the glasses scattered across the bar filled me with despair. The wireless was playing softly.
Bei mir bist du schön. .
And you had fallen asleep.
please let me explain. .
With your head slumped forward, and your mouth open.
Bei mir bist du schön. .
In your hand, a burnt-out cigar.
means that you’re grand.
I tapped you gently on the shoulder.
‘Shall we go?’
The Talbot was parked in front of the gates of the ‘Villa Mektoub’ and, as always, Marcheret had left the keys on the dashboard.
I took the Route Nationale. The speedometer read 130. You closed your eyes, because of the speed. You had always been scared in cars, so to cheer you up, I passed you a tin of sweets. We roared through deserted villages. Chailly-en-Biere, Perthes, Saint-Sauveur. You cowered on the passenger seat beside me. I tried to reassure you, but after Ponthierry, it struck me that we were in a decidedly precarious position: neither of us had papers, and we were driving a stolen car.
Corbeil, Ris-Orangis, L’Haÿ-les-Roses. Finally, the blacked-out lights of the Porte d’Italie.
Until that moment, we hadn’t spoken a word. You turned to me and said we could telephone ‘Titiko’, the man who was going to get you across the Belgian border. He had given you a number, to be used in an emergency.
‘Be careful,’ I said in an even voice. ‘The man’s an informer.’
You didn’t hear. I said it again, to no effect.
We pulled up by a café on the Boulevard Jourdan. I saw the woman behind the counter hand you a telephone token. There were some people still sitting at the tables outside. Beyond them the little metro station and the park. The Montsouris district reminded me of the evenings we used to spend in the brothel on the Avenue Reille. Was the Egyptian madame still there? Would she still remember you? Was she still swathed in clouds of perfume? When you came back, you were smiling contentedly: ‘Titiko’, true to his word, would be waiting for us at 11.30 p.m. precisely in the lobby of the Hôtel Tuileries-Wagram on the Rue des Pyramides. Clearly it was impossible to change the course of events.
Have you noticed, Baron, how quiet Paris is tonight? We glide along the empty boulevards. The trees shiver, their branches forming a protective vault above our heads. Here and there a lighted window. The owners have fled and have forgotten to turn off the lights. Later, I’ll walk through this city and it will seem as empty to me as it does today. I will lose myself in the maze of streets, searching for your shadow. Until I become one with it.
Place du Châtelet. You’re explaining to me that the dollars and the pink diamond are sewn into the lining of your jacket. No suitcases, ‘Titiko’ insisted. It makes it easier to get across the border. We abandon the Talbot on the corner of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue d’Alger. We’re half an hour early and I ask you if you’d like to take a walk in the Tuileries. We were just going coming to the fountain when we heard a burst of applause. There was an open-air theatre. A costume piece. Marivaux, I think. The actors were bowing in a blue glow. We mingled with the groups of people heading for the refreshment stand. Garlands were hung between the trees. At an upright piano, near the counter, a sleepy old man was playing ‘Pedro’. You ordered coffee and lit a cigar. We both remained silent. On summer nights just like this, we used to sit outside cafés. We watched the faces round us, the passing cars on the boulevard, and I cannot remember a single word we said, except on the day you pushed me under the train. . A father and son probably have little to say to each other.
The pianist launched into ‘Manoir de mes rêves’. You fingered the lining of your jacket. It was time.
I can see you sitting on a plaid-upholstered armchair in the lobby of the Tuileries-Wagram. The night porter is reading a magazine. He did not even look up when we came in. You look at your wrist watch. A hotel just like those where we used to meet. Astoria, Majestic, Terminus. Do you remember, Baron? You had the same look of a traveller in transit, waiting for a boat or train that will never come.
You didn’t hear them arrive. There are four of them. The tallest, wearing a gabardine, demands to see your papers.
‘Monsieur was planning to go to Belgium without telling us?’
He rips the lining of your jacket, carefully counts the notes, pockets them. The pink diamond has rolled on to the carpet, He bends down and picks it up.
‘Where d’you steal that?’
He slaps you.
You stand there, in your shirt. Ashen. And I realise that in that moment you have aged thirty years.
I’m at the back of the foyer, near the lift, and they haven’t noticed me. I could press the button, go up. Wait. But I walk towards them and go up to the bleeder in the raincoat.
‘HE’S MY FATHER.’
He studies at us both and shrugs. Slaps me listlessly, as if it were a formality, and says casually to the others:
‘Get this scum out of here.’
We stumble through the revolving doors which they push round at top speed.
The police van is parked a little way away on the Rue de Rivoli. We sit, side by side, on the wooden benches. It’s so dark I can’t tell where we’re going. Rue des Saussaies? Drancy? Villa Triste? Whatever happens, I’ll stay with you to the end.
As the van rounds corners, we’re thrown against each other, but I can barely see you. Who are you? Though I’ve followed you for days on end, I know nothing about you. A shadow in the half-light.