Rough Trade (24 page)

Once again the big hall in the old Trades Union Centre in rue du Château d’Eau was completely packed. Men everywhere, standing between the rows of seats, even along the promenade.

Very different now from the excitement of the early days, the thrill of being together, in the street or the Centre, free from
clandestine
life. Now people looked grave, there was a buzz of
conversation
in lowered voices, the tension of decision day. These men had restored something of the utopian atmosphere and
nineteenth-century
spirit to the old Trades Union Centre.

Soleiman reached the platform along with four Frenchmen and Turgut Sener, present for the first time as embassy representative in the negotiations. They sat down. Sener remained slightly apart, he looked uncomfortable. Soleiman stood up. He spoke briefly, in Turkish, in a loud, hoarse voice, without using the microphone or any rhetorical effects. When he’d finished he turned towards the platform and spoke in French, his voice even hoarser and his
accent
very strong.

‘I’ve told how far we’ve got in the negotiations with the minister. We’ve made a lot of progress. Yesterday he proposed legalized
status
for Turks who had arrived here before 1976, barely 10 per cent of us. Today the crucial date has been brought forward to 1979. That involves 80 per cent of us now. Of course, it’s not exactly what we proposed at the beginning. But we’re convinced we won’t get any further in global negotiating. So we have to accept. And afterwards we’ll support each individual case step by step. Many points are still obscure: lodgings, conditions in the workrooms, work contracts. Let’s have confidence in our collective strength. We’ll fight on every front, we won’t let anyone down.
Ya
hip
Ya
hop
, but before we can carry on, we have to say yes to the minister.’

No reaction in the hall. Then came two or three angry objections to the proposed agreement. Soleiman translated for the platform in a low voice. The audience were extremely attentive but still did not react.

Berican stood up. He was in one of the front rows, surrounded by his workers. He told his story. How he’d acquired papers ten years earlier, by paying the embassy, paying the immigration
services
, paying the French police. His arrest that morning by the French police, then his release: ‘This is the first time I’ve seen successful collective action by Turkish workers in France. It’s a great day for me, I’m proud to be Turkish, here in Paris.’ His voice trembled with emotion. ‘And when Soleiman says he’ll fight for every case, I believe him, for I’ve seen him take action this
morning
, and win.’

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
TECH
NICIANS
. 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.

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.

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.’

Attali, wearing a dark suit and tie, carrying a leather dispatch case in his right hand and a volume of the
Encyclop
é
die
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
Encyclop
é
die
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
Encyclop
é
die
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 small: 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.

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.

Half an hour later the boss put his pistol away and called the police station.

‘I’ve been occupied.’

‘Who by?’

‘Ten or so workers.’

‘Where from?’

‘They’re my workers.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘There’s a stranger with them.’

Soleiman, in a loud voice: ‘I’m the official representative of the Defence Committee for Turks in France.’

Nobody at the commissariat was keen to rush over: Dispute over working conditions, negotiate. Phone down.

Soleiman smiled, they began to talk. The boss, by name Gribsky, admitted in the end that he was completely ruined; he’d lost
everything
at the races, his own money and the money for the workers’ pay, and he’d been counting, he said, on the pile of finished
garments
at the back of the workroom for the workers’ wages. But there now, the Turks were preventing delivery, twice already the people who’d ordered them had been stopped from collecting them … The girls laughed: that old horror had been counting on the delivery to recoup what he’d lost at the races, fancy that! The Turks warned Soleiman that they would dismantle the machines that night and pay themselves out of the proceeds.

Soleiman to the boss: ‘Sell your business, lease, machines and stock. You’ll pay the wages and still have something left over. Otherwise, criminal bankruptcy, theft of machines, anything could happen … and you’ll be left with nothing.’

Gribsky went off in search of someone who could mount a
rescue
. The workers settled down to occupy the workroom. A meeting was arranged for the next morning at the Committee office.

‘Théo, I’ve read your last two reports very carefully, as I did with the others in fact …’

Daquin waited.

‘I’ve been thinking about this plan for a raid when the raincoats are delivered. We’ll work together on the details. I agree we should play it that way. But you realize the dangerous nature of the
operation
, the many unknown factors …’

Still no reaction.

‘This morning I had a phone call from the chief secretary at the minister’s office. Yesterday one of your inspectors contacted two deputies, asking for interviews …’

‘Yes, Inspector Attali, on my instructions.’

‘OK. But the minister’s actual orders are clear: we have to forget the deputies. You’ve got no firm evidence against them … and that will free resources you can use to concentrate on the Turkish network.’

With a laugh. ‘Agreed.’

‘Aren’t you going to protest? Aren’t you going to tell me I’m not fulfilling my role, not protecting the work of my departments?’

‘No, chief. I’d expected it. I’m even surprised you didn’t say this earlier, and I’ll deal with it. On the other hand I’d like to know if the minister has anything to say about Kashguri.’

‘Yes, I was coming to that. We’ll drop any action against him as well, as long as there’s no formal evidence against him. Same
treatment
as for the deputies.’

‘Very well. Your orders will be respected. No action as long as we have no firm evidence. By the way, and obviously there’s no
connection
: I’ve got several people who’ve seen the identikit portrait of the man who killed my concierge and they’ve formally identified him as Kashguri’s manservant. What shall I do about it?’