Nazis in the Metro (3 page)

Vaguely ashamed, Gabriel Lecouvreur now lowered his head while passing the sentry booth for the second time in his existence. He made a beeline for the main entrance while one of the guards was busy answering the phone. He admired the shapeliness of a West Indian woman who was updating a schedule that hung on the wall, lingering for a while on the curve of her waist, then decided to cough to attract her attention.

—Can you tell me which unit André Sloga is in? He’s a relative … He was admitted during the night, after an attack …

Her lacquered nails squeaked against the glossy paper of the patient log, and the sharp point of her index finger stopped next to a name.

—He’s still in Emergency, in ICU … I’m sorry, but visitors are strictly forbidden.

Gabriel made as if to leave, then turned back around.

—I came up from the south just to see him. Maybe I can find out something from the doc … Do you know who’s on his case?

The young woman shrugged, then glanced back at the register.

—Professor Lehmann is taking care of him. You’re welcome to try, but I’d be shocked if he agreed to tell you anything whatsoever!

Gabriel was again turned away when he approached the ICU staff to ask for news about Sloga’s condition. He waited for a while, pacing the hundred feet of the central corridor, peering at anyone who came or went, his eyes peeled for a crack in the system. Finally he’d had enough, and then, as he was traversing the wings of the Pitié on his way to the exit, he came across a nurse busily picking up books that had fallen from a cart whose shelves, intended for trays of food, had been stocked with reading material instead. He stooped to glean a few copies of
Que sais-je?
—a booklet for the Assimil method of learning English—and two mismatched volumes of
Jalna
, and offered them to the young woman.

—I wasn’t aware that hospitals had added reading to their list of treatments …

She rose and tugged at the bottom of her smock to cover her knees.

—There are lots of sick people who can’t stand television anymore, who find it mind-numbing, and ask for things to read instead. I’m in charge of the library …

Gabriel collected the last paperbacks scattered in the corridor. Then he, too, stood up.

—It’s curious …

After a weighty silence, she took the bait.

—What’s curious?

—Oh! Nothing … I just learned that there’s a writer on the verge of death, two steps from here … And to see all these books on the ground … It’s just strange, the coincidence …

The librarian’s face lit up.

—You mean André Sloga? Do you know André Sloga?

—Not personally; I know him through his writing … Just yesterday I was rereading
The Innocents
 … A masterpiece. I would very much like to have met him, but your colleagues aren’t letting anyone near him.

She pushed her cart over to a small circular room set up as a cafeteria and sat down on a chair.

—There’s no point, you would only see a swollen face with tubes in its nose and mouth … I’ve read all of his books, passionately; it’s unbearable to see someone who has moved you so much in a condition like that … I was a nurse before I was a librarian, and believe me, I’m used to worse sights … But with this, it was like the first time …

—He’s badly banged up?

She swayed her head back and forth, lost in her thoughts.

—Yes … he’s a mess. You wonder how he managed to survive …

This was the trademark of professional thugs, Gabriel thought, the final stroke of intimidation: to leave the target on the verge of death, one foot in, one foot out.

—Do they know what happened?

—Not really … From what I’ve been told, one of his neighbors discovered him slumped in the stairway to the parking lot in his building, around one in the morning. Some cops from Boulevard de l’Hôpital brought him to us. They determined that André Sloga had just returned from vacation, and that he was attacked by a group of thieves who stole his luggage … It’s true that he lives in a pretty sketchy neighborhood …

—In the paper, they said Rue Jeanne d’Arc … That street’s been cleaned up for several years now, it’s almost become residential, and with the new library …

He gathered from her pout and the way she wrinkled her nose that she did not share his point of view on the improved standing of this pocket of the 13th Arrondissement.

—Do you know if he can speak?

—I watched him for two hours, early this morning … He experienced sudden bouts of terror, like anyone who comes in like that … He yelled …

—Were you able to understand any of it?

—No. Actually, he didn’t yell, he didn’t have the strength … He murmured, but you could see that he was trying to yell. Then he calmed down and started to speak.

—What exactly did he say?

—Nothing. Disconnected words with no meaning …

Gabriel leaned toward her.

—What words? It’s important … Try to remember, please.

She closed her eyes for a few moments.

—He said “loudspeaker” several times, yes, that’s it … “the loudspeaker on the square …” That came back every ten minutes or so … He also repeated “the bank, the bank,” and once, just once, he said a name …

Gabriel placed his hand over the young woman’s.

—What name?

She looked at him square in the face.

—“Max.”

“Max, the bank, the loudspeaker on the square …” Gabriel left the Pitié-Salpêtrière, his head spinning like an old scratched record with the words the writer had spoken on his sickbed. “Max, the bank, the loudspeaker on the square.” He got into his car and sat there for a moment, motionless, his elbows resting on the steering wheel, as he tried to figure out the magic combination that would be the key to the puzzle.
The bank of Max beneath the loudspeaker on the square. A max of banks for the crowd-speakers on the square. The proud speaker of Max’s square. Speak loudly, Max, on the banks of the square
 … The roar of a train on the elevated tracks snapped him out of his reverie. He started the car and took off toward Rue Jeanne d’Arc, which he followed almost as far as Tolbiac. Before getting out, he took the precaution of shoving two pieces of licorice chewing gum that had been softening on his dashboard into his mouth and removing about twenty centimeters from a spool of orange mending thread.

The artists who’d been squatting in the neighborhood had pasted colorful hand-painted posters to walls and posts, and taped them to the windows of sympathetic shopkeepers. If you came close enough and spent a little time, it was
possible to decipher the tormented calligraphy of the words, and to understand that they were protesting the imminent expulsion of a hundred painters, sculptors, and actors from the abandoned refrigeration warehouses that overlooked the train tracks, just steps from the Seine.

Gabriel walked up the street and found the name “André Sloga” among the labels on the intercom of the corner building. He knew the writer lived like a lone wolf, that he made no secret of a misogyny fueled by the failure of three marriages, but he pressed the button anyway to make sure the apartment was empty. He noted that by day, it was possible to enter the building’s foyer by buzzing yourself in. On the other hand, a reinforced door prevented access to the rest of the building.

From the depths of his pocket, Gabriel dug out his “key to the city,” a gift from the chief of the fire station on Rue de la Pompe. The master key could be used with any locking system, from the poorly jury-rigged to the most sophisticated, in all of Paris and the nearby suburbs. The twelve steel pins clicked in beautiful unison, like a regiment of ass-kissers who’ve stumbled upon a field marshal, and he found himself in a long, grey corridor with three rows of mailboxes along its right-hand wall.

André Sloga used two boxes: the first, fairly small, for letters, and another for bulkier pieces. Gabriel removed the advertisements that had also managed to cross the electronic barrier, and noticed that a dozen letters lay on the bottom of the first metal box. He checked to see that no one was coming from either direction, then unfurled the orange thread to its end, to which he attached the sticky brown mass he’d
been kneading in his mouth for the last five minutes. He slid the gum into the box, jerking it this way and that in a fishing motion, then setting it down on top of the paper. He was careful to remoisten the sugary wad after each capture, and it took him less than a minute to remove all of the mail addressed to the writer. Seven notices concerning the finer points of domestic survival that end up draining the lifeblood from us all: Public Treasury, telephone, electricity, insurance. He sent them back into their void and kept only the four envelopes with no business name or return address. Then he attacked the box for parcels. The orange thread and licorice chewing gum had reached the limits of their combined powers. But the thin sheet-metal door bent beneath the pressure of his hands, and with the tip of his middle finger he was able to retrieve the single package, as thick as a pack of cigarettes, that lay at the bottom. The metal snapped back in place as soon as he let go. He tucked the letters and package under his belt and was about to leave the building when the clicking of the entrance door’s steel pins resounded in the corridor. He grabbed a doorknob and found himself facing the trash chute. He didn’t have the luxury of trying to find the stairwell a second time; the ceiling light had already caught his yellowing reflection on the polished skull of Inspector Vergeat. The pig let out a prolonged squeal. That was how he laughed.

—Lecouvreur! Unbelievable. Seriously, you’re the last person I expected to run into here, but in fact, you’re right at home.

—Am I? How do you mean?

—Yes, you’re at home wherever it stinks of shit!

Vergeat had approached the battery of mailboxes and seemed reassured to find André Sloga’s full.

He moved in a curious manner, repeatedly tugging at the creases in his pants, stroking his coat pockets, verifying at least thirty times the efficacious presence of the buttons on his shirt, the solidity of his belt buckle, the contents of his pocket. After each of their encounters, Gabriel vowed to describe Vergeat’s behavior to an alcoholic psychiatrist who hung out at the Pied de Porc à la Sainte-Scolasse, but had never been able to follow up, as the shrink always seemed to have reached the limits of his ability to comprehend anything by the time the Octopus thought to bring it up. In reality, he didn’t want to know too much about the calcified inner workings of the policeman; he wanted to keep the fight fair, without leaning on science. It wasn’t Vergeat himself who was the enemy, but the cop inside the man.

—So, explain … What the fuck are you doing here?

Gabriel lifted a finger toward the floors above.

—Nothing. I came to visit my aging aunt …

The inspector shoved his hands into his pants pockets and massaged his thighs through the fabric.

—I didn’t know this André Sloga was a faggot!

—I have no idea who you’re talking about … Friend of yours? Someone who lives here?

Vergeat lifted his knees, one after the other, to pull up his socks.

—Don’t play dumb with me, I might beat you at your own game … You know why I’m not surprised to find you here?

—Do tell.

—For the simple reason that you could have been his son! The same stew floats in both your hydrocephalic skulls … Defiance of law and order, unmotivated hatred of uniforms, simplistic challenging of statute … Pains in the ass, that’s what you are. Congenital pains in the ass!

He punctuated his diatribe with a series of slaps to his coattails. Gabriel made a move toward the door. Vergeat rammed his shoulder against the wall.

—What are you doing in these parts? I’m still waiting for you to answer.

—Listen, inspector, I’m just an ordinary citizen, and like any ordinary citizen I’m free to walk where I see fit without having to explain myself to any authority, civilian or military … On the other hand, I’ve got quite a few questions about you …

Vergeat removed his glasses from their natural resting place and nervously wiped them with his handkerchief, which he smoothed and refolded neatly before putting it away.

—I’d be interested in hearing them …

—What could an uncultivated pig like you understand about the life of a writer of Sloga’s stature?

The inspector pulled himself onto the tips of his toes to dig his claws into Gabriel’s jacket collar. The words hissed through his too-white teeth.

—You can’t possibly know how much I hate guys like you … Your sense of superiority makes me sick. It’s not the only dream I have, but I swear, one day I will break you …

All at once he became aware of the ridiculousness of his position. His fingers let go of the collar, and his heels
regained contact with the hallway’s tiled floor. He straightened his tie.

—I don’t know what you’re after, Lecouvreur, but you won’t find anything … We’re tracking a gang of junkies who are squatting in the old warehouses of Austerlitz and pay for their fixes by attacking night owls in parking lots … This isn’t the first …

—What’s curious is that they would send you on such a job … I wasn’t aware that they’d created a surveillance squad for parking lots back at HQ …

Vergeat restored the shine to his shoes by rubbing them on the backs of his pant legs.

—You yammer and yammer, and you don’t know a tenth of what we’ve got. HQ is just the tip of the iceberg … Everything happens at the lower levels. As soon as the name André Sloga was entered into the complaints database on the main computer, someone made the connection and his file was faxed to us … He had us by the balls, this hack, in the 70s … Big time! So they asked me to come take a look, as a formality, even though the stiff’s shown no sign of life for almost a quarter of a century … We don’t like loose ends. It’s that simple …

The inspector frowned when Gabriel began to pull on the tails of his own jacket, to smooth out invisible creases.

—That’s reassuring to hear … He must have really given you hell …