Due Preparations for the Plague (22 page)

I want you to stop the dreams, Dr. Reuben.

I want the children removed from my dreams.

You see that one, the little one with the dark hair and solemn eyes? His breath is a sweet concoction of curried food, fear, and something resembling cardamom. “What’s your name?” I ask him, and he says, “Agit,” and I promise him, “Everything’s going to be all right, Agit.” That was my promise to the little face that filled the screen of my monitor. The way I tell it, the way I feel it, the way the keeping of my promise feels true to me, is the moment when I set him (so to speak) on the escape slide, which is to say when one of Sirocco’s thuggish crew gave him a push and he slid into Germany.

But he does not grow up into gratitude.

Would it have been better then, back then, to let him stay with his mother on the plane? That is the question. Would it have been better to let him slip across that line that all must cross in the end? Would it have been better then, back then, instead of thirteen years later, the way it happened, had to happen, as required? This is a grave moral question. Such dreadful accidents are the things I have been called upon to arrange.

No more, I said.

I refuse. Arrangements for Agit Shankara will not be made.

But what difference does it make when there are always others who will handle these matters?

Nevertheless, I refused. I know the price I will pay.

I am racked by what has been required.
I am in blood stepped in so far
, and Macbeth too started out with ordinary clean ambition and extraordinary zeal and simply got out of his depth, because one does not notice it happening, that is the trouble, until the day one takes a step too far and suddenly one is sloshing through blood and there is blood on one’s hands and blood on the ceiling and walls and blood in one’s breath and in one’s thinking and one recognizes Operation Macbeth, or Operation Blood, and yes, yes,
I am stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

There is nothing new under the sun, Dr. Reuben.

You see the little girl in the blue coat? I have picked her up a thousand times in my mind. “Don’t be afraid,” I murmur, because I am in fact a very gentle man, especially and invariably with children. I slide her coat off her shoulders because it will be easier for her that way, and I stroke her cheek when I set her down at the top of the chute. Her cotton dress catches on something, a metal edge, the lever of the escape hatch, and how frantically I work to unhook her clothing and let her slide free (there is so very little time available), and I am left with a swatch of cloth between my fingers. It is white, sprinkled with forget-me-nots, and there is a fragment of smocking at one end: a few ruchings of cotton, some white thread, a smocked rosebud. On the monitor, I watched one of Sirocco’s thugs put it in his pocket, and I keep it in a pocket in my mind. It is there at all times.

She, sweet little bird, flies down to the tarmac, unharmed.

And now look. What can it mean, that such innocence should be so harsh and vengeful? She has the face of an angel. Her wings are silken and they glide like languid blue kites, fantastically beautiful, but the tips of the wings are barbed.

I cry back into the dream:
You don’t understand. You do not know what riding a tiger is like. If it had not been for me, not one of you would have been saved, not one. Not one single child would have been led off that plane, if not for me.

But no one hears.

Tocade. I suppose I became as obsessed with him as my daughter did and as Sirocco did and as the woman whose code name is Geneva did, and you can imagine how that particular collision interested us. When two separate people whom we have under surveillance make connection, we assume our suspicions were correct.

You can see that, can’t you, Dr. Reuben?

You can understand that the compound unit becomes an object of the most intense scrutiny, and in this case, in their case, the Tocade-Geneva case, there was the additional factor, the X factor, the goad. We—my colleagues in the profession and I—are fascinated by those objects of surveillance who are not suggestible, who have a zero suggestibility index, as we say, who do not succumb to inducement, who do not crack under pressure, who often do not even understand the exceptional nature of their own stubbornness, which may be sheer stupidity, I often think that, or may be a certain kind of obtuseness of comic-book dimensions, like the coyote in the
Roadrunner
cartoons, for example, with his lunatic inability to understand when he has been utterly expunged and flattened and wiped out, and it is precisely his insane thickheadedness which paradoxically makes him impossible to kill. You will understand that is why Tocade and Geneva became an obsession with me, and hence with Sirocco.

With us.

We are as attracted to people like that as we are deeply wary of them. We keep them under close observation. They are dangerous. If they do not already work for someone else, we want them to work for us, and not only because their line of work would make them such ideal covers for our purposes. We are, perhaps, not unlike vampires—I can say this sort of thing to you, Dr. Reuben, because the dark corners of human behavior would be no surprise, would they?—we are not so unlike vampires, I admit it. We have lost our own souls and so we seek out people whose vibrancy reminds us painfully of what we once were, because in this career we all began as idealists, that is our tragedy. We began because we believed—most passionately we believed—in the idea of a free society. We believed that our way of life had to be preserved. We believed that our forms of government must, at all costs, be upheld.

Aye, there’s the rub: at all costs. That is where the slide begins …

We slip, we make one small, compromising—yet absolutely necessary—decision, an expedient decision, a complex and difficult and informed choice between the lesser of two evils, and this decision leads, in one month or ten, or in a year, to another slippery but essential decision, and then we find ourselves on loose scree, slipping and sliding and falling and falling and falling …

I often find myself pondering the meteoric descent of Icarus, wondering what he thought of on the way down.

And what about his father, watching? What was going through his father’s mind?

And Isabella’s, when the plane exploded, what was she thinking? But no, I never think about that, I never think about Isabella, my second wife, whom I believed I had saved. I never think about Icarus or Isabella or any of those doomed fliers—

What …?

Oh.

Tocade and Geneva. Certainly I think about
them
, because I’m drawn to people who—, we all are in this profession, it’s a fatal attraction. We lust after them, we feed on them, we want to pass on the kiss of living death. You see, we want to say: you are just like us after all, corruptible. You can be bought; or if you cannot be bought, you can be broken. You can be brought to acknowledge that multiple compromises—even shady ones, even ones that in ordinary circumstances you would find abhorrent—are the
sine qua non
of a nation’s good.

You want me to recall the moment when I would say this obsession began? Let me see … with a photograph, I suppose, a photograph of the man and my daughter in a bistro because of course I had to keep them under surveillance for my daughter’s own protection as well as mine, and for the good of the nation. For global peace, in fact, because you understand, I’m sure, that Françoise and her mother were flashpoints, Achilles’ heels—you see the risk?—they could be used for blackmail, they never fully understood, I believe, the extent to which I worried about them …

So I showed her the photograph and Françoise said, “You can’t have him, Papa. I won’t let you. He’s mine.”

“Where did you find him?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you anything about him. I want you to leave us alone.”

“My dear,” I said, stroking her hand. I was very, very fond of her, very proud of her beauty. “You know how futile that is. I already know his place and date of birth, his military service record, his reading habits, and his medical record, for which reason let me strongly advise you to take proper protection during sex.”

“I hate you, Papa,” she said.

She didn’t hate me, of course. Not then. Not until after I saved her life, after which she
knew
… But earlier, before all that, she didn’t hate me. For one thing, she cared too much about her allowance and her little
atelier
in the seventh, but because she was in love in that desperate intemperate way—that way in which one is only in love once in a lifetime—because of this, I decided to sound him out myself.

“Monsieur Charron,” I said, presenting my card at the Paris Book Fair. “Mather Hawkins of Trident Books, a small literary press. We share—”

What?

Oh. Yes, you make an interesting point, Dr. Reuben. Something there is that doesn’t love erasure. There’s some core of identity that insists on declaring itself, even when aliases and codes are a way of life. So. Yes. Mather Hawkins.

“Mather Hawkins,” I said. “We share an interest in African and East European writers.”

“Yes?” he said, studying my card. “I haven’t heard of you.”

“We’re a high-literary-end operation, very small, and we work out of New Haven, not New York.” He was a nobody himself then, a mere peon at one of the big houses, but someone to watch, people said,
une affaire à suivre
, tough and brilliant,
un stratège ténébreux
, a voracious and encyclopedic reader, and an attentive one, with a knack for spotting future literary success. This was long before the creation of his own small but brilliant publishing house, Editions du Double, but already that was what people in the book trade were saying. He had a lean and hungry look that excited me. I can use people who have that look.

“I thought we might be of use to each other,” I said. We were speaking in French, you understand. His English is so-so; I made my French sound merely adequate, my accent deliberately poor.

He raised one eyebrow. “Really?” he said, and I asked him, “May I buy you a drink?” and he said, “Why not?” And then over scotch-and-soda at the Brasserie de Cluny, he asked bluntly, “Who’s on your publishing list?”

“Drozic, for one,” I said, removing an elegant little poetry collection from my briefcase. “As you know, Gallimard publishes him here.” I watched him leaf through the book. I was very proud of that production, which I’d had some old Yale classmates put together. I had them do the translation and design a chapbook. My classmates are bibliophiles who keep a hand-set press, a genuine antique, and I had them do a print run of ten copies.

“Beautiful cover,” he said appreciatively.

“I’ve heard that the book as artefact matters to you.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Oh, on the grapevine. It matters to us too, but to fewer and fewer in the trade, as we both know to our sorrow.”

“How big is your print run?” he wanted to know.

“Very small,” I said. “Five hundred copies.”

“How can you afford paper like this?” he asked, fingering it.

“We have a private backer,” I said. “Patron of the arts. This sort of thing is his hobby. And here,” I added, taking from my briefcase a novella, an exquisite little thing with matte silk covers, “the Algerian writer Virginie Khalid. Gallimard does her too, as you know.”

I remember the way he turned the pages, the way he touched them. He is a man for whom books—books themselves, you understand, the physical objects—are items of erotic interest as well as being repositories of ideas and occasions for stylistic bravura. It pleased me to watch him, it pleased me that my daughter had found him. She has inherited my good taste, I thought. I watched the way Charron caressed the pages with his fingers as he spoke, and I understood why my daughter desired him.

“I’m surprised to learn these writers have English-language publishers,” he said. “Even in France, they don’t sell. They have very few readers. The cognoscenti, the literati, that’s all. And American publishers are notoriously—”

“To our dishonor,” I agreed. “But at Trident, we have a small yet distinguished readership, by subscription only.” I leaned across the table. “At present, our only conduit to writers such as these is via the French translations. As you know”—and I lifted my eyebrows ruefully—“it’s difficult for Americans to get access to certain countries and certain books. We’re looking for a contact in Paris who can go to Prague, for example, or to Budapest, more easily than we can. We want someone French-speaking—”

“You speak French fluently enough,” he said, and he was the kind of man whose eyes hold yours and challenge them, he never lowers his gaze, and nor do we, of course, it is the very essence of our training, so I eyeballed him back and I said, “But I’m unmistakably an American speaking French,” and he laughed at that.

“You are,” he said.

“So you can see,” I pointed out, “how this restricts my mobility in Algeria, say, or French Cameroon. You can see how it puts certain areas and contacts off limits. What I want is a scout who can make direct connection with writers in Belgrade or Casablanca or Djibouti, especially with those writers who have to stay … in the shadows, shall we say? Even within their own countries.”

“We’re talking about Muslim writers.”

“Well,” I said, shrugging. “If that’s your mode of categorization. I’d call them African and East European. Does this interest you?”

“I’m listening,” he said, and then I produced my little list. “These are writers who’ve attracted our attention,” I told him. “Some are published in French, but none are in English yet.”

I remember he turned that X-ray gaze on me again and went straight for the flaw in my pitch. “If your only access is via French translations, how do you know about the ones not yet published in French?” he asked, but I was just as fast, I was equal to him, and I told him that we’d heard about them through scholarly contacts, through specialists in the literatures of Eastern Europe and Africa. Trident’s editorial board members were all academics, I told him.

He studied the names for a long time and then he looked at me. “Given what I know about American publishing,” he said, “this is a curious list.” I raised my eyebrows and waited. “No American publisher would touch these books,” he said, and I rushed in with a preemptive comment where angels might well have taken pause.

“Because the writers are political activists, you mean?”

“Of the sort not approved by your State Department,” he said.

Well, I thought. So. I’ve got you on my line, little fish. You know a lot about these writers, it would seem. I leaned across the table, close to him, and spoke low. “You are political, monsieur.”

“No,” he said impatiently. “I’m not. Or not in any sense that you would mean. Nevertheless, I’m fully aware that no American publisher would touch these writers. They’re too prickly. Dissidents within the Communist Bloc, yes, and against socialist African regimes. But they are noted intellectuals who are also critical of the US.”

“That’s our point, you see,” I said. “No American publisher would touch them except a small one like ourselves, with private backing.”

“And with subscription readers.”

“We understand each other,” I said.

“Which means,” he said with a strange little smile, “that there’ll be no trace of your existence in the trade journals. Should I doubt your claims, I mean.”

He met my eyes directly, at high voltage, and I eyeballed him back.

“Our subscribers are people like you,” I said. “They care about literary style, not politics. They’re bibliophiles. They have a passion for the book as objet d’art, and they’re willing to pay for rice paper and a hand-set press. We could do business, you and I.” And then I baited my hook. “Both our patron and our subscribers are very wealthy indeed. Your expenses would be covered, it goes without saying. But beyond that, remuneration would be generous. Extremely generous, I believe you will find.”

“I’ve been getting the impression,” he said, “that you’d be offering substantial inducement. What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Make contact with these authors, write reports on them, get their manuscripts to us. You could scoop Gallimard for the ones who aren’t published in France yet. You’d get French rights.” My gaze was just as intense as his, and just as focused, because this is where I become excited with the chase, this is when the real thrill of recruiting kicks in. It’s an art form, really, and a science. Once I know I’ve hooked him, I give my prospect some slack, I play him on the line, I pull him toward me, I let him run loose, I feign indifference, I hold the line taut, I reel him in.

Minutes passed, I think, and neither of us broke eye contact by more than a blink because I cannot bear to miss a second at this stage, I have always loved to watch from close up that interval of teetering on the brink—
what’s the catch?
the prospect is asking himself;
is this too good to be true
?
what’s going to be demanded of me?
—before capitulation comes. And so I waited patiently for my daughter’s lover, the ambitious young publisher, to swallow bait and hook and line and sinker. We can keep this all in the family, I thought.

And then, without lowering his eyes from mine, without blinking, he began to tear my list into little pieces and to drop the confetti in his scotch. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked, rising. He poured the scotch over my head.

From that moment, I feared for my daughter and for myself. “
J’ai une tocade pour lui, Papa
,” she had told me, and I could see it. She was crazy about him. And for myself, I felt a nerve fluttering violently behind one eye which I knew to be the warning tic of obsession and should have heeded, but already it was too late.