Night Rounds (7 page)

Our agency was, if not approved of, at least tolerated by the Police Department: we furnished whatever information they asked for. Moreover, we were running a racket with the above-mentioned persons. They believed they were buying our silence and protection, since Mr. Philibert had close ties with his former colleagues, Inspectors Rothé, David, Jalby, Jurgens, Santoni, Permilleux, Sadowsky, François, and Detmar. My job, as a matter of fact, was to collect the racket money. Twenty thousand, sometimes a hundred thousand francs. It had been a rough day. Bargaining and more bargaining. I could see their faces: sallow, oily, standard brands in a police
line-up. Some of them tried to hold out and I was obliged to – yes, in spite of all my timidity and softheartedness – raise my voice, threaten to go straight to the police at the Quai des Orfèvres if they didn't pay up. I told them about the files my bosses had me keep with a record of each and every name and life history. Nothing very special, those files. They would dig out their wallets, and call me a "squealer." The word stung.

I was alone on the bench. Some places invite reflection. Public gardens, for instance, lost kingdoms in Paris, fading oases amid the roar and the callousness of humanity. The Tuileries. The Luxembourg. The Bois de Boulogne. But never did I do so much thinking as in the Champs Élysées gardens. What really was my profession? Blackmailer? Police spy? I counted the cash and took out my
10
per cent. I'd go over to Lachaume and order a whole thicket of red roses. Pick out two or three rings at Van Cleef & Arpels. Then buy fifty-odd dresses at Piguet, Lelong, and Molyneux. All that for Mama – blackmailer, bum, informer, finger man, perhaps killer, but a model son. That was my only consolation. It was getting dark. The children were leaving the park after one last ride on the carousel. Along the Champs-Élysées the street lights went on all at once. It would have paid – I told myself – to stick close to the Place des Acacias. Make sure to avoid the main streets and boulevards because of the noise, the unpleasant encounters. What a foolhardy idea to be sitting outside at the Royal-Villiers café, Place
Pereire, I who was so discreet and wary, so anxious to avoid being seen. But you have to start out somewhere in life. You can't buy it off. In the end it sends round to you its recruiting sergeants: the Khedive and Mr. Philibert, as it happened. On some other evening I could have fallen among more honorable companions who might have encouraged me to enter the textile field or become a writer. Having no particular bent for any profession, I waited for my elders to decide what I would do. Up to them to figure out what they'd like me to be. I left it in their lap.

Boy scout? Florist? Tennis pro? No:

Employee of a phony detective agency.

Blackmailer, finger man, extortionist.

Still, it was rather surprising. I didn't have the equipment for this kind of work: an ugly temperament, lack of scruples, a relish for sordid company. I dug into it conscientiously, the way others go for a boilermaker's license. Funny thing about guys like me: they can just as easily end up in the Pantheon as in Thiais cemetery, dumping-ground for spies. They become heroes. Or rats. Nobody will ever know that they got dragged into some foul mess to save their own skins. What they really cared about: their stamp collection, and a bit of peace and quiet, on the Place des Acacias, so they could breathe.

Meanwhile, I was turning out a miserable piece of goods. My apathy and indifference made me doubly vulnerable to the Khedive's and Mr. Philibert's influence. I
remembered the words of a doctor, a neighbor on my floor at the Place des Acacias. "After you reach twenty," he told me, "you start to rot. Fewer and fewer nerve cells, my boy." I jotted this remark down on an engagement calendar, for we should always heed the experience of our elders. He was right, I now realized. My illegal activities and unsavory associations would rob me of the bloom of youth. My future? A race, with the finish line in no man's land. Being dragged to a scaffold without a chance to catch my breath. Someone whispered in my ear: All you'll have had from life is this whirlwind you let yourself be caught up in gypsy music, wilder and wilder, to muffle my screams. This evening the air is decidedly balmy. As in the past, always at the same time, the donkeys are leaving the main path and heading home to the stables. All day long they've had to walk the children to and fro. They disappear around the corner of the Avenue Gabriel. No one will ever hear about their suffering. Such reticence was impressive. As they went by, my peace of mind returned, my indifference. I tried to gather my thoughts together. They were few and far between, and all extremely commonplace. I'm not the thinking sort. Too emotional for that. Lazy. A couple of quick efforts always brought me to the same conclusion: I'll die sooner or later. Fewer and fewer nerve cells. A lengthy process of putrefaction. The doctor had warned me. I should add that my work inclined me toward perverse pleasures: police informer and blackmailer at the age of
twenty, that narrows one's sights a bit. A funny odor permeated
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Avenue Niel from the antiquated furniture and the wallpaper. The light was never steady. Behind the desk with the wooden files where I kept the records on our "customers." I indexed them by names of poisonous plants: Inky Coprinus, Belladonna, Satanic Boletus, Henbane, Livid Entoloma … The slightest contact with them made me start to decalcify. My clothes reeked of Avenue Niel's stifling odor. I let myself be contaminated. This disease? An accelerated aging process,
a
physical and moral decay just as the doctor had said. Yet I have no relish for morbid situations.

Un petit village

Un vieux clocher

was the pinnacle of my fondest hopes. Unfortunately, I was in a city, a kind of sprawling Luna Park where the Khedive and Mr. Philibert were driving me from shooting galleries to roller coasters, from Punch and Judy to "Sirocco" caterpillars. Finally I lay down on a bench. I wasn't meant for this sort of thing. I never asked a soul for anything. It was they who came after me.

A little farther along. On the left, the Ambassadeurs theater. They're performing an operetta that nobody would remember. There can't be much of an audience. An elderly lady, an elderly gentleman, two or three English tourists. I pass along a grassy stretch, the last of the
hedges. Place de la Concorde. The street lights were blinding. I stood still, breathing hard. Overhead, the Marly horses were rearing, straining every nerve to resist the will of man. Ready to bolt across the square. A magnificent, sweeping view, the only place in Paris that leaves you with the giddiness of mountain peaks. A landscape of stone and sparkling lights. Over by the Tuileries, the Ocean. I was on the quarter-deck of a liner bound for the Northwest, carrying with it the Madeleine, the Opera, the Berlitz Palace, the Church of La Trinité. It was about to sink. Tomorrow we'd be resting on the ocean floor, three thousand fathoms deep. My shipmates no longer filled me with dread. The gaping mouth of the Baron de Lussatz; Odicharvi's cruel eyes; the treacherous Chapochnikoff brothers; Frau Sultana twisting a strap around her left arm to make the vein bulge and injecting herself with
30
cc. of morphine; Zieff with his vulgarity, his gold chronometer, his pudgy fingers encased in rings; Ivanoff and his sessions of sexuo-divine pan eurhythmics; Costachesco, Jean-Farouk de Méthode, and Rachid von Rosenheim discussing their abortive frauds; and the Khedive's gangster crew of hirelings: Armand le Fou, Jo Reocreux, Tony Breton, Vital-Léca, Robert le Pâle, Gouari, Danos, Codébo. … Before long all those sinister creatures would be meat for octopi, sharks, and moray eels. I'd share their fate. Readily. I had realized this quite suddenly one night when, with arms spread to form
a
cross, I was going along the Place de la Concorde. My
shadow projected all the way to the Rue Royale, my left hand extended to the Champs-Élysées gardens, my right hand to the Rue Saint-Florentin. The idea of Jesus Christ might have occurred to me, but I thought of Judas Iscariot. No one had understood him. It took a good deal of humility and courage to shoulder the crushing burden of mankind's disgrace. To die of it. Alone. Like a great man. Judas, my big brother. Born skeptics, both of us. Not an ounce of trust did we place in our fellow men, in ourselves or in any likely savior. Shall I .find the strength to follow you to the very end? A difficult path. Night was coming on, but my job as informer and blackmailer made me used to the darkness. I put aside my unpleasant thoughts about my shipmates and their crimes. With a few weeks of hard work behind me at the Avenue Niel, nothing surprised me any more. Even if they came up with a new set of facial expressions, it wouldn't make any difference. I watched them moving about on the promenade deck, along the gangways, noting their coarse frivolity. A waste of time when you consider that water was already pouring into the hold. The main lounge and the ballroom would be next. With the ship about to capsize, my pity went out to the most savage passengers. Hitler himself could have come rushing into my arms crying like a child. The Arcades along the Rue de Rivoli. Something ominous was afoot. I had noticed the endless stream of cars along the outer boulevards. They were fleeing Paris. Probably the war. A sudden disaster. Coming out
of Hilditch & Key, where I'd just picked out a tie, I examined this strip of fabric men loop around their necks. A blue-and-white striped tie. That afternoon I was also wearing a tan suit and crepe-soled shoes. In my wallet, a photograph of Mama and an expired métro ticket. I'd just had a haircut. These details were of no interest to anyone. People were bent only on saving their own skins.
Chacun pour soi
. Before long there wasn't a soul or a car on the streets. Even Mama had left. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. This silence, this deserted city, symbolized my state of mind. I examined my tie and shoes again. The sun was nice and warm. The words of a song came back to me:

Seul

Depuis toujours…..

What was happening to the world? I didn't even read the headlines. Anyway, there wouldn't be any more newspapers. Or trains. In fact, Mama had taken the last ParisLausanne Express.

Seul il a souffert chaque jour

Il pleure avec le ciel de Paris …..

A sad, sweet song, the kind I liked. Unfortunately, it was no time for romance. We were living – it seemed to me – in a tragic era. You don't go around humming nostalgic pre-war tunes when there's wholesale agony everywhere you turn. I had no sense of decorum. Am I to blame? I never had much taste for anything. Except the circus, comic operas, and musicals.

By the time I reached the Rue de Castiglione, night had fallen. Someone was following me. A slap on the shoulder. The Khedive. I was expecting that we would meet. At that moment, on that very spot. A nightmare: this menace was no stranger to me. He takes my arm. We get into a car. We cross the Place Vendôme. The street lights cast an eerie blue glow. A single window alight in the Hotel Continental. Blackout. You'll have to get used to it, my boy. He laughs and turns on the radio.

Un doux parfum qu'on respire

c'est

Fleur bleue …..

A dark mass looms in front of us. The Opéra? The Church of La Trinité? On the left, Floresco's brightly lit sign. We're on the Rue Pigalle. He speeds up.

Un regard qui vous attire

c'est

Fleur bleue…..

He whistles the refrain softly, pumping his head in tempo. We race along at a dizzying speed. He starts to
turn. My shoulder butts against his. The brakes screech. The hall lights on the landings don't work. I grope my way up the stairs clutching the banister. He strikes a match, just giving me time to glance at the marble plaque on the door: "Normand-Philibert Agency." We walk in. The smell turns my stomach – more nauseating than ever. Mr. Philibert is standing in the entrance. He was waiting for us. A cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth. He winks at me and I, despite my weariness, manage a smile: I was thinking that Mama had already reached Lausanne. There, she'd have nothing to fear. Mr. Philibert takes us into his office. He complains about the irregular electricity. This shaky light from the bronze ceiling fixture doesn't surprise me. It had always been like that at
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Avenue Niel. The Khedive offers us champagne and produces a bottle from his left jacket pocket. As of today, our "agency" – so it seems – is due for a sizable expansion. Recent events have worked out to our advantage. We're moving into a private house at
3
bis
Cimarosa Square. No more of this small-time stuff. We're in line for some important work. It's even possible that the Khedive will become police commissioner. Now's the chance to move ahead, in these troubled times. Our job: to carry out various investigations, searches, interrogations, and arrests. The "Cimarosa Square Bureau" will operate on two levels: as an arm of the police and as a "purchase office" carrying goods and raw materials that will shortly be unobtainable. The Khedive has already
picked out some fifty people to work with us. Old acquaintances of his. All of them, along with their identification photos, are on file at
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A venue Niel. Having said this, Mr. Philibert hands us a glass of champagne. We drink to our success. We will be – so it seems – the rulers of Paris. The Khedive pats my cheek and slips a roll of bills into my inside breast pocket. The two of them talk, look over some files and appointment books, make telephone calls. Now and then a burst of voices reaches me. Impossible to follow their conversation. I go into the adjoining room, our "clients' " waiting room. There they'd sit in the worn leather chairs. On the walls, a few colored prints of harvest scenes. A sideboard and pine furniture. Beyond the far door, a room and bathroom. I used to stay on alone in the evening to put the files in order. I worked in the waiting room. No one would have guessed that this apartment housed a detective agency. A retired couple used to live there. I drew the curtains. Silence. Wavering light. The scent of faded things. "Dreaming, my boy?" The Khedive laughs and straightens his hat in the mirror. We walk through the vestibule. Mr. Philibert snaps on a flashlight. We're having a housewarming tonight at
3
bis
Cimarosa Square. The owners have left. We have taken over their house. A cause for celebration. Hurry. Our friends are waiting for us at L'Heure Mauve, a night club on the Champs-Élysées …