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.
The blonde says it’s a good choice, and Berthet wants to tell her that he’d be glad to eat her pussy.
“You’d be glad to eat her pussy, right?” says Counselor Morland.
Strange and specific kinds of telepathy exist between men who have been together a long time in close contact with state secrets and violent death.
Berthet thinks he’s going to die. Berthet knows he’s going to die, or is about to. The sudden hardness of his dick is a somatic sign that never fails to warn him. An even surer sign than Morland’s announcement.
Berthet gets hard for anyone, for anything, when death is near.
This began when Berthet was twelve years old, well before Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan military school, well before The Unit. His grandfather was being buried in a village in Picardy.
They’d had to take a train, from Gare du Nord to be precise. Berthet was as sad as if he were the one who had died.
Getting out of the taxi with his parents, Berthet had looked up through the rain at the statues with big boobs on top of the building. The statues represented international destinations. The ones lower down, in front of the vast windows, represented more local destinations. Their boobs were not so big, of course. Berthet had preferred the international ones. The big-boobs cities.
Cities where Berthet would go later on behalf of The Unit—London, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam—cities where he would manipulate, destabilize, lie, torture, assassinate, and cities where after all this, he would fuck desperately, seeking out women who resembled those statues, women huge, massive, firm.
To get to his grandfather’s funeral, they’d taken an old mainline train with sleeping compartments. Berthet, distraught by the first death in his life, had spent his time walking annoyingly back and forth past his sobbing mother to go jerk off in the train car’s toilet, mentally replaying to the rhythm of the tracks the images of the railway caryatids, their hard breasts, their arms against the gray sky.
When they buried his grandfather in the rain, which played its role perfectly in that cemetery on the outskirts of Abbeville, Berthet wept hot tears because he liked his grandfather, but also because his martyred prick was bleeding a little and he was afraid it would show on his black corduroys.
At the time, the Gare du Nord didn’t look like an airport you’d take to fly to the fourth dimension, a platform for freaks bound to the parallel worlds of dope, an accelerated state of homelessness, and social death. Their medieval-looking faces, their ulcers, their missing teeth, their foul smell of mass graves, their barely articulated speech, all of this was like living blame for thirty years of failure on the part of the welfare state.
At the time, the trains at the Gare du Nord were not designed for high speed, for the exclusive use of global elites.
Blue, gray, Bordeaux trains, phallic enough to make a Laca-nian laugh out loud. And from these trains, men and women pour every hour now, looking busy with their laptops, their cell phones, their bodies full of benzodiazepines, antidepressants, alcohol, come, shit, and the latest figures marking the return on their investments in start-ups in Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Their bodies full of all these things, but not nicotine. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere: Cigarettes stink and smoking can kill you.
At the time, to intervene between those two mutant species, the Gare du Nord did not have mixed patrols of soldiers and uniformed cops, which always makes you think a coup is not far off. Besides, at The Unit, they know that a coup is never far off, that perhaps one is happening at this very moment, though no one knows it. A postmodern coup.
At the time, there were no battalions of special riot police either, transformed into ninja warriors meant to make the new market gap materialize once and for all—a digital divide to the end of time, unbridgeable, an end of the war of all against all. Neck-protecting helmets, opaque visors, Kevlar vests, padding at the joints, walkie-talkies constantly crackling.
And Berthet thinks that he has never liked the 10th ar-rondissement, and the Gare du Nord even less, the Gare du Nord as:
antechamber of the coup
prelude to civil war
back room of electronic fascism
warehouse of the death trade
laboratory of the apocalypse
Once again, Morland is telepathic: “When I arrived from Brussels a little while ago, I said to myself, walking along the platform, that everyone is now living in a permanent state of emergency and everyone thinks this is normal. No one can even remember what this place was like only twenty years ago. Better they don’t, or they would seriously start to panic.”
Morland interrupts himself. Morland burps from the charcuterie, but discreetly because Morland is a high-level intelligence bureaucrat, a classy one, not a bum.
“Fucking hell, Berthet, they’re really after your hide at The Unit …”
The blond waitress brings the bottle of Dilettante.
Berthet is still hard, Berthet tastes. The Vouvray is perfect, heartbreakingly perfect, even when you know that The Unit is ditching you and drinking wines like this one cannot go on much longer.
“You know why?” Berthet asks.
“Hélène. Hélène Bastogne,” says Counselor Morland.
They bring the fricassées of langoustines with cèpes. Berthet and Counselor Morland sniff.
It’s like a forest in autumn by the sea.
And then the windows of Chez Michel explode.
2.
Berthet is lying on the ground. The fricassée is all over his suit. Berthet sees:
Morland, his skull topped off like a soft-boiled egg, holding his glass of Dilettante halfway to his mouth;
the well-endowed blond waitress, who has no more face but is still standing with a bottle of Châtel-don mineral water in her hand;
the other couple who were having lunch at Chez Michel, quite dead, their shredded heads on their plates of grouse with foie gras, still tempting despite two manicured feminine fingers, cleanly cut off, lying on the meat; a cat right next to his face,
a cat meowing as if to express its displeasure, but a cat that Berthet can’t hear.
Berthet is thinking two things:
first, cats are not democrats, which must be a vague, Baudelairean reminiscence;
second, I’m deaf because of the explosion. Probably a defensive grenade. They’re going to come back to finish the job. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Berthet gets up. Berthet stinks of langoustines and cèpes.
Berthet is annoyed. Berthet has a romantic notion of the last-ditch stand. And it does not fit the image of a man in a ripped Armani suit that smells of langoustine.
Hélène Bastogne, what do you know?
A car somewhere blares its antitheft alarm.
Counselor Morland’s topped-off head is dripping into the Dilettante from Cathy and Pierre Breton.
Barbarians. Bunch of barbarians. To do that to a practically unadulterated wine.
A motorbike makes a half-turn at the end of rue de Bel-zunce. Two guys in helmets. Petty subcontractors. The Unit subcontracts now, like any other big firm in the private sector. It’s pitiful. The driver of the bike leans against the buttress of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church before skidding to a halt.
The passenger pulls the pin out of a second grenade.
Fucking subcontractors, I’m telling you.
Professionals would have stepped right into Chez Michel, come up to Berthet and Counselor Morland’s table, shot them simultaneously through the back of the head with low-caliber weapons, like the Tanfoglio .22 against Berthet’s ankle.
Farting noises. By the time everybody has reacted and understood that the strike wasn’t really a stroke, they’re far away.
Come on! Stupid temps. Even The Unit has accountants now. Even The Unit is into budget cuts. Part-time work in the intelligence services. Assholes. Berthet knows that he’s living in a system in which, even on the day the world ends, there will be guys complaining about deficits.
Berthet takes out his Glock. Berthet puts a clip in the barrel. The nondemocratic cat is still silently yowling at him. Berthet would have liked to be sure the bullet is properly in place. You can always tell by the sound, but Berthet is still deaf.
Berthet opens fire. Berthet does not hear the irritated gunship-like noise the Glock lets out.
Berthet hits the grenade-throwing passenger first. Who is theatrically thrown off, who falls, who explodes all by himself on the pavement of rue de Belzunce.
Then Berthet changes his line of fire.
Then Berthet shifts into a new target acquisition phase.
Then Berthet thinks: Motherfucker!
Then Berthet punches holes into the driver’s helmet. Four times.
The bike wobbles, the body rolls over, the bike keeps going on its side and stops at Berthet’s feet.
Now the enucleated waitress is sitting on the banquette, the Châteldon water is spreading, the Châteldon water is fizz-ing on the moleskin seat.
Counselor Morland is still and forever waiting for the nervous impulse that would allow his arm to bring the glass of Dilettante to his lips, which move spasmodically.
Berthet understands that his hearing has returned when Berthet hears:
the yowling of the reproachful cat; Counselor Morland humming Sacha Distel’s song “La Belle Vie” through a reddish mush;
the bike’s motor running in neutral; the police sirens.
Hélène Bastogne. Shit.
And to think that Berthet missed the grouse with foie gras.
Berthet puts the Glock back in its holster, gulps down the last of the Dilettante directly from the bottle.
And Berthet takes off.
Hélène Bastogne.
3.
Unlike Berthet, Hélène Bastogne loves the 10th arrondisse-ment. Hélène Bastogne lives there. An apartment on Place Franz Liszt, beneath Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the charming little Cavaillé-Coll park. Not very far from where Counselor Morland is almost done spilling the top of his skull into the Dilettante, where Berthet rushes out of the carnage scene and heads toward the Gare du Nord.
Hélène Bastogne is an investigative journalist, and like all investigative journalists Hélène Bastogne is being manipulated. Hélène Bastogne does not know this, but even if Hélène Bas-togne did suspect it, Hélène Bastogne doesn’t give a damn because Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
The solution would be a novel, thinks Hélène Bastogne. There is a blue sky out there. A novel in which Hélène Bas-togne would tell everything. The blue November sky and the wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park.
Hélène Bastogne concentrates on the cock inside her. A novel would be the solution for a number of problems. But Hélène Bastogne does not know the names of the trees. Hé-lène Bastogne regrets this. Actually, a novel would solve nothing. Hélène Bastogne feels the cock inside her getting soft.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Let’s hope he doesn’t come before she does. The cock belongs to Lover #2. Lover #1 is a graying publisher from rue de Fleurus. Lover #2 is his editor-in-chief. Lover #2 has come to check on Hélène Bastogne’s work. Confessions of a secret service guy. Lover #2 has promised to take her to a new bar on Canal Saint-Martin. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know the name of the bar. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know anything right now, except her oncoming pleasure.
A novel. A novel that would speak of pleasure, of the wind in the trees whose names she does not know. Of the bars along Canal Saint-Martin, of the 10th arrondissement, of Lover #2’s prick, Lover #1’s prick too.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Lover #2’s prick is regaining some strength. Or perhaps it’s because Hélène Bastogne, who is riding it, has slightly changed her angle. And that’s better for him. Don’t go soft, please, don’t go soft.
Explosive confessions, as they say. The guy came to the paper two weeks ago. The guy was wearing a beautiful Armani suit. Forty-five at most. Soft eyes, deep voice, close-cropped hair. The guy began to talk.
Wind in the trees, wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, still. The top of the one Hélène Bastogne sees through the large window is moving to the same rhythm as Lover #2’s cock.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
The guy might have been a good lover too. The guy said really interesting things in this preelection period. From the Ivory Coast to the riots in the projects just outside Paris, the true, bloody poetry of secret intelligence.
Names too.
Then he left. Then he came back the next day. And he said really interesting things again, the game with the dormant Islamist cells, the journalists abducted in Iraq, and he gave names again, and numbers.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Things come and go, which is normal in a consumerist society. The wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, Lover #2’s cock inside her, the confessions of the secret agent in the Armani suit, everything comes and goes in Hélène Bastogne’s world. A novel to say that. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. Hélène Bastogne could almost kick herself for not knowing.
Hélène Bastogne needs redemption. Quickly. Hélène Bastogne needs to come. Quickly. Like everyone else, she no longer believes in God. Perhaps a novel. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. To begin with:
she doesn’t know the names of trees;
she doesn’t know how to pray;
she doesn’t know if the spy hasn’t conned her a little;
she doesn’t know if she can write.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Yet Hélène Bastogne is no fool. Lover #2 is an editor-in-chief first and foremost. When he listened to the MP3 recording of the operative, he found it so wild that he danced around Hélène Bastogne’s office at the paper—“It’s a bombshell, baby!”—a pitiful parody of rappers by a fifty-, soon sixty-something baby boomer with an indecent income.
And afterward, he had wanted to fuck Hélène Bastogne. Logical. For the moment Hélène Bastogne, thirty-two in a month, likes the cynical animality of it. Lover #2 is no longer that abstract power managing the editorial board like some tyrannical Nero, who makes trips to New York and back in one day, who meets tired and greedy faces in the drawing rooms of luxurious hotels, who takes telephone calls with a cell nickel-plated like a handgun.
No, Lover #2 suddenly had a body. Hormones, adrenaline, cologne. Slightly trembling hands, moist temples: the flashes of amphetamines, the flashes of triumph, the flashes of his exultant gonads. A spy who’s ratting, a spy spilling names, dates, evidence, a spy who’s going to explode the paper’s circulation.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
A stronger gust of wind. The nameless trees in Cavaillé-Coll park are moving. Lover #2 is coming. By distilling all this little by little, they can double the sales over two weeks.
Hélène Bastogne topples onto Lover #2’s torso. Then slips down beside him on a Bordeaux spread. Crumpled La Perla un- derwear. A Mac screen is pulsing. Hélène Bastogne buries her face in a sweaty neck, near a madly beating carotid artery.
“So, baby, can I take you to this new bar? It’s on Quai de Jemmapes.”
“If you like.”
Lover #2 is a typical baby boomer. Lover #2 likes to exhibit girls who are half his age with a third of his income in lame places like Canal Saint-Martin, which has completely turned into a museum by now. Always in the hope of bumping into the ghost of Arletty. Asshole. For her trouble she’ll play the whore a little and get him to buy her some stuff at Antoine et Lili, a trendy clothing boutique a little farther down, on Quai de Valmy. The fact is, Hélène Bastogne is not in a very good mood.
Because Hélène Bastogne did not come. As usual.
4.
“We missed Berthet, sir.”
“You’re really dumb, Moreau. Did you subcontract again?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With your tightwad savings, you’re going to land us up shit creek. Was that you, the killing in the 10th? I just heard it on France Info.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are the dead?”
“My two subcontractors, three civilians, and Morland.”
“You killed the counselor? You’re so stupid, Moreau.”
“If the counselor was with Berthet, it means the counselor was talking, right?”
“You’re an idiot, an asshole, anda moron. And on top of that, you wrecked one of the nicest restaurants in Paris. Where are you calling from?”
“From the Brady—”
“The alley or Mocky’s movie theater?”
“A movie theater, actually, yes, sir. The room is full of black guys jerking off, sir. Whose movie theater did you say this is?”
“Mocky’s, Moreau, Mocky’s. You’re completely ignorant on top of it all. Stay there, Moreau, and wait for orders. I’m going to fix your dumb blunders.”
They hang up.
Moreau is not happy. Moreau is forced to sit in the dark movie theater.
Moreau is forced to watch a film in black-and-white with the young Bourvil who steals from church collection boxes.
Moreau is forced to stay there with black guys who are jerking off.
Berthet will pay for this.
5.
Berthet goes into the Gare du Nord. The caryatids are making fun of him in the blue November sky. Especially the Dunkirk one, it seems to him. A train to Dunkirk, why not? And then a freighter.
And then what?
Berthet is totally losing it. Berthet knows he’s got to get a grip on himself, and fast. This isn’t Conrad. This isn’t Graham Greene.
Berthet has The Unit after his ass. Berthet has a torn suit that smells of cordite and langoustine. Berthet still has one clip for his Glock, two for his Tanfoglio. Berthet knows that going home isn’t an option. The Unit is waiting for him, of course.
Berthet doesn’t live far from here, though, Passage Truil-lot in the 11th, but rue du Faubourg du Temple, the border between the two arrondissements, suddenly seems to him impossible to cross, like the Berlin Wall must have been for Morland before. Poor Morland.
But listen, all this is kind of Morland’s fault.
It was Morland who told Berthet to talk to that journalist, Hélène Bastogne. Saying this was going to be a big help to The Unit. To pass himself off as a guy from the Service. To destabilize the Service by ratting on the Service. Because during this preelection period, The Unit is still loyal to the Old Man, the President, while the Service is rather in favor of the Opposition Candidate, the Pretender. And the Old Man wants to take down the Pretender.
At least that’s how Morland explained it.
Internal politics, what a pain in the ass, thinks Berthet, as he steps into a terrifically impersonal neon and stainless steel café.
Inside there are people with that strained look of all departing travelers, and other people who have that strained look of people who aren’t departing travelers but who have nothing better to do than watch the ones who are.
Yes, internal politics is a pain in the ass, thinks Berthet, who doesn’t mind dying in Algiers, Abidjan, or Rome, but not two kilometers from home in an arrondissement where there are nothing but train stations, hospitals, and whores.
In other words, an arrondissement for hypothetical departures to rainy places, incurable diseases, and paid orgasms with spots of melanin on callipygian asses.
Yes, internal politics is a drag.
And Jesus, talk about those train stations! Berthet thinks the Gare de l’Est is even more depressing than the Gare du Nord. The Gare du Nord plays it futurist and Orwellian, but the Gare de l’Est still reeks of the draftees who went off twice in twenty years to get slaughtered on the Eastern fronts.
Furthermore, the paradox is that Berthet has hideouts even The Unit doesn’t know about in a dozen European and African cities, but here in Paris, in the 10th arrondissement— nothing, nada, zilch.
Berthet finally understands, though a bit late, a precept from The Art of Warby Sun Tzu. A book that everyone at The Unit claims to be reading, it’s their bible and the pretext for seminars after Commando Training in Guyana.
Berthet used to think that reading Sun Tzu was a bit of a show-off, a little “We-at-The-Unit-are-philosopher-warriors,” a pose, really.
But now Berthet has to admit that the old Chink was right: “What is essential is to ensure peace in the cities of your nation.” In other words, peace would be a studio known only to himself, equipped with:
clean suits
weapons with no serial numbers
a set of false identity papers
medicine in the bathroom cabinet
some cash
cell phones with local numbers
These studios do exist. The closest is in Delft, between Brussels and Amsterdam. Delft—that sure does Berthet a lot of good.
The road might be a possibility. Straight toward Porte de la Chapelle, the highway to Lille. Yeah, right.
Berthet orders a coffee at the counter. Berthet thinks this over. Berthet understands. The Unit wants him dead to eliminate the source of leaks to the Service. The Unit, once the dirty work has been done, wants to keep its hands clean.
Berthet feels very depressed. If The Unit has decided to do away with him like that, it’s because The Unit must think he’s outdated, old, a loser.
Berthet could call Hélène Bastogne, tell her about having been conned. That wouldn’t do much good, just piss off The Unit. Whatever he does now anyway, he’s definitely out of the game.
Berthet wants to take a piss. Berthet goes up to the first floor of the café. To get into the john, you have to put fifty euro centimes into a kind of piggy bank on the door handle.
Clearly, a homeless bum is waiting for Berthet to go in and for Berthet to leave the door open when he comes out. The stinginess of this café, the bum’s stinginess, the stinginess of internal politics, all this irritates Berthet.
In the world as it was before, you didn’t pay to piss. To accept this is more proof that a submission chip has indeed been implanted in all people born after the oil crisis.
Berthet looks for exact change. Next to him, Berthet feels the bum’s need to piss as pressing as his own. This irritates Berthet even more.
Then Berthet blows his fuse.
Berthet takes out his Glock and breaks the bum’s nose with the butt. Then Berthet finally manages to find the right coin, Berthet goes into the john, Berthet drags the body of the bum along with him, quite easily given the drug-addicted thinness of this economically deprived individual, and once the door is closed, Berthet crushes the bum’s face with a stomp of the heel of his Church’s shoe, thinking about:
those Unit shits
those Service shits
that shit Sun Tzu
that grouse with foie gras he had to skip
that internal politics crap
The bum is pretty quickly disfigured and dead. In place of his face there are shards of bone, bits of rotten teeth, torn flesh, and even an eye popped out of its socket looking disapprovingly at Berthet.
Berthet takes his leak, Berthet farts, and Berthet wonders what got into him.
Berthet washes his hands, Berthet splashes water on his face, Berthet wipes off his Church’s and the bottoms of his trousers.
Berthet remembers, then, that he forgot to take his Hal-dol when he was having lunch at Chez Michel. And this is the upshot.
Berthet swallows two pink gel tablets and is about to step out, when one of his two cell phones vibrates.
6.
“Hello, my friend!”
Lover #2 immediately recognizes the Voice at the other end of the cell phone. Lover #2 loves this Voice. A top bureaucrat’s phrasing, a cabinet minister’s unction with media appeal to boot because the Voice publishes two essays a year on globalization, always the same ones, and because the Voice is invited everywhere to receive all the journalists’ compliments and bows. The Voice is one of the ten or twelve most powerful Voices in France.
“Hello, sir.”
Lover #2 tries to stay cool, relaxed. To deal equal to equal with the Voice. Lover #2 is the editor-in-chief of a major daily, after all.
“I have a favor to ask you, my dear friend …”
Lover #2 puffs out his chest. Lover #2 forgets that he is stark naked on Hélène Bastogne’s bed, and that his fingers smell of Hélène Bastogne. As for Hélène Bastogne, she’s taking a shower so long it might be insulting if Lover #2 didn’t have other things on his mind.
“Go on, sir.”
“You have a journalist on your paper called Hélène Bas-togne, I believe?”
“Indeed, sir.”
Lover #2 restrains himself from saying, That’s funny, whata coincidence, I just fucked her, rather well if I must say so myself,and now we’re going for a drink near Canal Saint-Martin. Howabout joining us? We’ll make it a threesome. These thirty-year-oldsdo enjoy a good fuck, you know. Probably because of their poors power in relation to the older generation.
But Lover #2 doesn’t know the Voice intimately enough. That’s too bad. One day.
“Mademoiselle Bastogne has gathered some rather sensitive information, I believe, from an agent belonging to our services, hasn’t she?”
Uh oh. Uh oh. Careful. Careful, thinks Lover #2.
“True. And we’re about to bring it out soon. But if this is a problem to you, sir, I can postpone it.”
“Out of the question, my dear friend, it’s not our style to control the press. On the contrary, I’m going to tell you something in confidence: We ourselves encouraged this agent to talk. It has to do with internal stability, it’s very complicated, one day I’ll tell you about it. We are in favor of transparency, my dear friend. Only here’s the thing: This agent still has things to tell Mademoiselle Bastogne, some very interesting things.”
“He can just come by the office again tomorrow.”
“Now here’s the problem. A rival service has spotted him in your offices. We are in a preelection period. He’s risking his career and even his life if he visits you again. Your journalist does live in the 10th, right? Tell her to go home. Our man is in the area. He will meet her at her place. He will feel more secure there. Do this quickly, my dear friend. Let’s say within the hour. It’s urgent. We’ll send our man to a quiet place right after.”
“For security purposes, I would also like to be present at the interview,” says Lover #2. “You never know.”
“Your ethics and your courage are to your credit, my dear friend, I was going to suggest the same thing. But our agent is very nervous. The idea should seem to come from Mademoiselle Bastogne, that would make him feel secure. I’m counting on you, my dear friend, and I won’t forget to thank you after the elections.”
The Voice hangs up. Lover #2 rises, walks over to the bedroom window. Lover #2 looks down at Cavaillé-Coll park. Kids are playing before night comes, which won’t be long now. Lover #2 scratches his balls, Lover #2 looks toward the fa-çade of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul’s. Oh, not a great example of a faux Greek temple.
Lover #2 scratches his ass. Lover #2 has the feeling they’ve got him just where they want him. But come on, that’s paranoid, too much coke. Change dealers, must think about changing dealers.
Hey, Lover #2 says to himself, the place where my dealer wants me to meet him is not very far away, as a matter of fact. Near Saint-Louis Hospital. I’ll go as soon as everything is settled with this Berthet. I’ll have a blast with the Bastogne girl. I’ll order bo bun from the Asian restaurant on avenue Richerand. It’s the best bo bun in Paris. Coke, bo bum, and sex. If you’re going to spend an evening in this lousy area, you might as well make it a good one.
Behind him, the shower has stopped. The bitch has finally finished washing her ass.
Without turning around, Lover #2 senses the damp presence of Hélène Bastogne. Lover #2’s cock swells a little. This isn’t the right time, even if at a good fifty-plus years it’s always heartening to see that the machine can react in a split second.
“I got a tip over the phone while you were scrubbing yourself; I was told Berthet still has a bunch of stuff to spill. And fast. After that, he’s gone. He’s in the neighborhood, apparently. That’s lucky, don’t you think? We could ask him to meet us here. Do you have some way of reaching him?”
Hélène Bastogne looks at the soft buttocks of Lover #2. élène Bastogne wants to send this lousy fuck packing. But this lousy fuck is sometimes a good journalist. Not often, but sometimes. So Hélène Bastogne says: “I have his cell number, I’ll call him.”
7.
“Moreau?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re still at the Brady?”
“Where, sir?”
“At Mocky’s, moron.”
“At whose place?”
“Fuck, in your movie theater.”
“Yes, sir, and there are still black guys jerking off, sir.”
“You’re dismissed now, Moreau. You’re to go to an apartment on Place Franz Liszt, number seven. It’s near a bar called l’Amiral. The entry code is 1964CA12. Top floor. The apartment belongs to Hélène Bastogne.”
“And?”
“You clean up. If Berthet isn’t there, clean up anyway and wait. Until Berthet arrives.”
“Okay, sir.”
“Say, Moreau, what’s the film at Mocky’s?”
“What?”
“The film playing on the screen.”
“Something with the young Bourvil who filches from church collection boxes. I don’t understand anything. The actors are all terrible. Plus, with all these black guys jerking off—”
“Moreau, you don’t understand anything about film. And this nonsense about black guys jerking off—are you racist or what, Moreau? Or did you forget to take your Haldol? Forgetting to take Haldol makes you do stupid things, you know.”
“I took my Haldol, sir, and there really are black guys jerking off.”
“Okay, fine, though I don’t see why anyone would jerk off watching Un drôle de paroissien,unless they’re really serious film buffs. So, your mission?”
“Top floor, Place Franz Liszt, code 1964CA12. I clean up.”
“Good, Moreau. All right, get moving.”
8.
In his pay toilet at the Gare du Nord, Berthet puts his cell phone back into his pocket. Hélène Bastogne. Who wants to see him. Maybe it’s a trap, maybe not. Actually, Berthet doesn’t care. Berthet has a headache. Berthet looks at the bum’s dis-figured corpse. Maybe they’re right at The Unit, maybe he’s gone totally rotten. The fact that he lost it just by skipping one dose of Haldol proves it. Shit.
Might as well go see Hélène Bastogne. Berthet leaves the john. Two people are waiting. Berthet takes out a red, white, and blue official ID card.
“Health services, closed for the moment.”
And Berthet smiles. And Berthet signals with a broad, competent, and pleasant gesture that everybody must go back down, that he’ll be coming down too, right after them.
Berthet leaves the café. Berthet leaves the station.
The 10th arrondissement is falling into the warm November night. Global warming. Heading back home to the suburbs, the commuters are starting to flock in. Since Berthet has been bipolar—no, actually, since he’s become completely psychotic—Berthet remembers all the figures he sees. It’s terrifying.
Just today, for instance, glimpsed on random posters and newspapers, Berthet will always remember:
Portugal’s debt, which is sixty-three percent of their GNP;
dial 08 92 68 24 20 to talk uninhibited with very hot babes;
349 euros per month, no money down, for a Passat Trend TDI;
sixty percent of the young Senegalese woman’s skin was burned after the bus attack in the projects outside Paris.
So Berthet, who is moving against the human flow, almost automatically converts everything into numbers, and it’s no longer people he sees entering the Gare du Nord but:
180 million travelers annually
27 tracks
2 metro lines
3 regional railroad lines
9 bus lines
247 surveillance cameras
1 special police precinct
All this because a few years ago The Unit named Berthet head of a study group to mastermind terrorist attacks on the Parisian transportation system.
People bump into Berthet. Berthet wants to vomit now. Berthet’s headache is getting worse and worse.
Berthet avoids rue de Belzunce, taking a different route along boulevard de Denain, rue de Valenciennes, rue Lafayette. Berthet is hot. But it’s November. Shit. The end of the world is coming.
You might wonder what’s the point of still playing cat-and-mouse in this arrondissement sinking into twilight now, what’s the point of this squabble between the Service, The Unit, the Old Man, the Pretender.
To take over a country doomed to defeat, on a planet in its terminal phase?
Berthet remembers another lunch with Morland at Chez Michel, maybe a year ago. Then, too, figures, secret numbers. Berthet doesn’t want all these numbers to come back to him. Berthet takes another Haldol.
A pink pill against the apocalypse. Poor fucker.
Berthet reaches Place Franz Liszt. Berthet thinks of knocking back a glass at l’Amiral before going up to see Hélène Bas-togne. Berthet hesitates, gives up the idea even though the Haldol is making his mouth terribly dry.
The code. The stairs. He draws the Glock and then bends down to take the Tanfoglio from its holster on his left ankle. An intuition. The intuition of an operative. The intuition of a psychotic.
Top floor. Berthet gives a small push to the half-open door. Hot light from a lamp. He says, “Hélène Bastogne?” No answer.
Berthet gives the door a hard kick.
Berthet does a roll, head first.
Berthet hears the flatulent noise of a silencer. Berthet feels bullets going into his abdomen, his thorax, and also ripping the lobe off his left ear.
Berthet sees a Combas reproduction on the wall—that’s thirty-year-old taste for you!—and fires blind. To his right with the Glock, to his left with the Tanfoglio. It sounds like badly adjusted speakers, a broken stereo. Berthet empties his clips.
Berthet gets up. Berthet is spitting blood. Berthet is coughing in the smoke.
Berthet stumbles into a living room furnished in secondhand chic and sees Hélène Bastogne on a ratty club chair with her throat cut, and an aging Romeo he’s noticed at the newspaper as he vaguely recalls. He’s had his throat cut as well, and he’s been emasculated for good measure. His balls are in a vintage Ricard ashtray, on a low table, Vallauris style.
That’s why Berthet is hardly surprised to see Moreau stretched out on a threadbare kilim, with two round openings in his forehead, the Tanfoglio’s signature bullet holes. Moreau was also taking Haldol, but Moreau was probably skipping pills. Otherwise, Moreau wouldn’t have screwed up the job at the restaurant like that. Moreau wouldn’t have castrated the Romeo guy. Moreau would not have left the door half open.
Berthet coughs. Clots of blood. Not to mention his ear that’s hurting like hell.
Well, at least Berthet got Moreau. Berthet sits down in another club chair. It’s night now in the 10th arrondissement. Berthet sees the tops of the trees in Cavaillé-Coll park, the top of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul’s façade.
Berthet is afraid. Berthet is in pain. He hopes it won’t be too long now.
He seems to hear the wind in the trees. But that would be surprising, with all the traffic and all those sirens down below.
Two minutes later, Berthet dies.
9.
Three days later, purely out of curiosity, the Voice walked around the Gare du Nord, rue de Belzunce, Place Franz Liszt. The Voice came back up through Cavaillé-Coll park, went into the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, and the Voice prayed, quite sincerely, for the souls:
of Counselor Morland
of the blond waitress from Chez Michel
of the couple who were lunching at Chez Michel
of the two incompetent bikers
of the bum in the john at the Gare du Nord café
of Berthet
of Moreau
of the emasculated editor-in-chief
of Hélène Bastogne
Then the Voice walked out.
Autumn was still warm in the 10th arrondissement.
And the Voice said to himself that, all things considered, the operation had been rather successful.