His workers rose to their feet and applauded. The entire hall stood up, applauding and whistling for a good five minutes.
The decision was taken de facto and everyone lost their anxiety. On the platform Sener looked as though he was going to be ill.
When calm returned Soleiman arranged for a vote in due form with a show of hands and a teller for each row. Then all those who hadn’t been able to find a seat voted too: 1,754 for ratifying the agreement proposed by the minister, 217 against. Adopted. Then Soleiman passed on to questions-and-answers with the audience, dealing with all the practical aspects of the first phase of legalization which would begin the following day. The general assembly, broke up into endless little groups. Soleiman omnipresent, patient, indispensable.
The general assembly ended. The Turks streamed out towards place de la République. Romero located Sener who went off alone, looking crushed. He went up rue du Château d’Eau, crossed Boulevard de Strasbourg and went into a building where the many front windows were painted over white up to a height of about two metres. The plate by the door: ASSOCIATION OF LIGHTING TECHNICIANS. Romero went into a porch opposite, climbed up a boundary stone and craned his neck. There seemed to be quite a lot of people inside and the discussions were fairly agitated. Sener’s head was visible occasionally. Romero got cramp. He climbed down from his boundary stone and waited in the dark. Sener didn’t leave until two hours later. On his own and looking even more dejected. Romero followed him to his home and watched the apartment until lights out.
Nothing to report.
22
8 a.m. Passage du Désir
Daquin had been pacing about in his office for the last half-hour. The pressure was on and wouldn’t stop rising until 3 April. He would have to cope with it.
Romero telephoned and told him about Sener and the Association of Lighting Technicians. Keep trailing Sener.
Then the two officers from the disciplinary inspectorate arrived. Dark clothes, sombre expressions. They had a slight tendency to overdo it.
‘Madame Thomas has a Swiss bank account.’
‘You haven’t been hanging about …’
Smiles understood. ‘We paid. We had something to bargain with. Madame Thomas’s account is a joint account in the name of Monsieur and Madame Thomas.’
‘That alters everything. It means that Thomas can be implicated in his wife’s swindling.’
‘We’re going to do that. As of this morning. We wanted to tell you about it. Thomas will be in custody as from 10 o’clock.’
After they had gone Daquin spoke to the switchboard.
‘Whatever happens, I don’t want any calls from Meillant today, have you got that?’
The Drugs Squad chief on the line: Daquin, come and see me at once.
8 a.m. At the Committee
Soleiman had barely come through the door when the telephone rang. A Turk on the line.
‘We were at the general assembly last night. We’re on strike, the Committee must come.’
‘Where?’
‘24 rue des Maraîchers, 20th arrondissement.’
‘I’ll come as soon as I can.’
‘Be quick. We’ve said we’re on strike, we don’t know what to do now.’
9a.m. Avenue du Maréchal-Lyautey
Attali, wearing a dark suit and tie, carrying a leather dispatch case in his right hand and a volume of the Encyclopédie Universelle tucked under his left arm, entered a building in avenue du Maréchal-Lyautey, walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor, the top one. That was where Kashguri lived. The elevator didn’t move. Attali was surprised and tried again. Still nothing.
A man’s voice came down from somewhere and told him, in crude French: ‘Give your name, please, and the reason for your visit.
Attali: ‘My name is Lambert and I’m selling books, the Encyclopédie Universelle.’
The reply came quickly: ‘We are not interested. No thank you.’
*
Less than half an hour later Attali found himself back in the main entrance hall, deeply discouraged, having experienced one rejection after another, on every floor, while learning nothing about the tenants of the apartment on the fifth. The concierge, a sturdy woman in her forties, wearing a tight grey woollen dress, came out of her lodge.
‘What are you up to, young man? Door-to-door selling is prohibited in the building, there’s a notice saying so.’
Attali assumed a dejected look. He didn’t have to try very hard. He showed her the Encyclopédie Universelle catalogue: the culture and science of the whole world, nobody wanted it.
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Come and have a beer in my lodge. That’ll cheer you up. I’ve no work at this time of day.’
The lodge was smalclass="underline" a table, four chairs, one armchair, a fridge. A television. The living-quarters must have been somewhere else. Attali sat down.
‘I got off to a bad start. I tried the elevator, I pressed the button for the fifth floor.’
‘Where the Iranians live.’
‘Are they like the Iranians we see on TV, yelling and refusing to release the American hostages?’
‘Just like that. Ours don’t yell but they’re the same sort of savages.’
She put the beers on the table and sat down beside Attali. She had rough hands and dyed hair. Why did she sit beside him and not opposite?
‘Have they been here a long time?’
‘Eight or ten months. The apartment’s magnificent, you know. And that Kashguri, that’s his name, lives there alone with four servants, two men and two women. I don’t know what he gets up to with them.’
Am I dreaming or had she moved her chair closer? What shall I do, for God’s sake, what shall I do?
‘In any case, the women, they’re Asian, never go out. Not once in eight months. And the menservants take things in turn. One does the shopping or drives Kashguri about, the other one stays up there, looking after the apartment and the girls. I think it’s suspicious. What do you think about it?’ And she placed one hand on his wrist.
‘That’s true, it’s not normal. Doesn’t anyone ever go up there?’
‘I never go, neither do the delivery people. But there are often receptions in the evening. In the end the tenants on the fourth floor complained. Fashionable people too at those receptions.’ She smiled at him and put her other hand on his thigh. ‘Feeling better, dear?’
‘I could drink another beer.’ She went to get it out of the fridge. Attali was sweating. ‘And when they have receptions, does the elevator work the same way?’
‘Yes.’ She sat down again and moved her chair closer to Attali. Her thigh was touching his now. ‘The people give their names. The menservants check them from a list and let them come up. One wonders what they’ve got to hide.’ Once again, her hand on his thigh, higher up, very near his dick.
Attali jumped to his feet, red-faced and tense.
‘Sorry, madame, I’m homosexual.’
He caught hold of his dispatch case and fled as fast as he could.
9a.m. Rue des Maraîchers
A shop at street level, its windows painted over. Soleiman pushed open the door and went directly into the workroom. Thicket of cables, machines, as everywhere else. Eight illegal Turks, four French women workers and a little old man who was already elderly, in his seventies, quivering with rage. When he saw Soleiman come in he rushed to his desk at the back of the room, opened the drawer and brandished a revolver at him. The girls were terrified, the Turks ready to fight. Soleiman smiled. It was like a scene from vaudeville.