Back Up

by Paul Colize

  After dark, a few guys took out their hipflasks of liquor. We poured the filthy stuff down our throats and engaged in a gigantic pillow fight that ended in the small hours of the morning. Next day, they took a group photograph and informed us that the cost would be deducted from the money we would receive for our two days. At the end of the day, I stood in line and walked into an office where a military doctor announced I was fit to serve. I received the verdict with a mixture of incredulity and resignation. For better or worse, I knew those few words would change the course of my life.

  I collected my things and left.

  At the corner of the street, I tossed my ID badge down the drain.

  26: GUILTY OF SOME OFFENCE

  The Derscheid Clinic’s chief consultant was an energetic woman in her forties, with a powerful voice and striking good looks.

  On Wednesday, April the fifteenth, she attended X Midi’s bedside with the entire multidisciplinary team. The latest reports she had seen suggested the man was ready for their visit.

  She positioned her face in the man’s line of vision and tried to hold his gaze.

  ‘Hello, my name’s Marie-Anne Perard. I’m the clinic’s chief consultant.’

  She paused, watching the man’s eyes.

  ‘I know you can understand me. I’m going to tell you what’s happened to you, and explain what we are going to do.’

  She stopped, turned to her assistants and indicated with a nod of the head that the man was clearly conscious. She turned to him once more and moved her head slightly to the left.

  The man’s eyes followed her.

  ‘You have had an accident, Sir. We call it a cerebrovascular accident or CVA. It has affected your brain stem.’

  She let the information sink in.

  ‘Briefly, the brain stem is part of the central nervous system. It’s located between the brain and the spinal cord, and it channels the nerves leading to and from your brain.’

  A thin trickle of saliva escaped from the man’s mouth.

  ‘I’ll be frank with you. For the moment, you’re totally paralysed, but there is hope. You’re responding well to the initial treatment. You’ve begun to move the fingers of one hand, which is a sign that you are entering the recovery phase – your body is gradually reawakening. Your condition can improve. If this continues, we can…’

  She paused, seeking the right words.

  ‘We can prolong your life. We may be able to help you recover some of your faculties. But you have to help us.’

  She passed a hand in front of X Midi’s face.

  The man’s eyes widened.

  ‘Can you sense my hand over your face? If you can feel my hand, blink once.’

  The man showed no reaction.

  ‘I know you can understand me. We can communicate with you, and you can communicate with us. We will ask questions that require only a “yes” or “no” answer. To say yes, blink once. To say no, blink twice.’

  The man continued staring at her. She thought she could see fear in his eyes.

  ‘You need to trust us, there is hope, but you have to help us. Are you ready to help us?’

  She moved closer.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to you before the accident, but you’re safe here. Nothing bad can happen to you. I will come and see you regularly. I can’t force you to communicate with us, but it will help us if you agree to cooperate.’

  The man tried to avoid her gaze.

  She stepped back and signalled to her team. They fell into single file and left the room as quietly as possible, as if guilty of some sort of offence.

  27: AGAINST MY HEART

  Scraps of the world before come to me. Sounds, colours, a few indistinct images. During the day, they inflict the television on me: cartoons, idiotic game shows or repeats of old football matches. The sound is turned down so low I can’t grasp what’s going on.

  Yesterday, a rock group burst onto the screen. Four crazed guys. No idea which century they were from. I opened my eyes wide. I concentrated hard to try to hear them. The guitarists pulled faces and writhed like demons, the drummer was fired up, shaking his head all around, the singer twirled and waved in a flood of light.

  A few notes and a thin, reedy voice were all I could hear, but for a moment, I felt alive.

  Someone entered the room and switched off the TV. Overstimulation is to be avoided.

  Sometimes they stroke my skin lightly, bend over me, feel my muscles. One of them works hard, pummelling and kneading my carcass. But his hands do some good. He massages my legs, feet and back, and the nape of my neck.

  A woman asked me to pucker my lips, as if I was going to give her a kiss. She opened my mouth with her fingers. I had to slide my tongue along my palate. She said it was good, I was making progress.

  Another woman came to talk to me about hope.

  What hope? The hope of escaping one prison for another? Imagination and memories are my only escape. Nothing else.

  If they only knew how much I value freedom. For freedom, I gave up everything I cherished most in the world.

  My call-up papers arrived in late autumn. Two gendarmes called first thing in the morning, to deliver them in person. It was raining. There was a strong wind. The trees were skeletal, their leaves swirled along the street.

  I was to report to the Dossin barracks in Malines on the second of January 1964, before 10:00a.m. The papers said I would spend three months there before joining a unit as a typist, at the operational headquarters of a mobile evacuation hospital near Cologne, in Germany. A train ticket was included with the forms.

  Next day, I told my boss I would be leaving work to complete my military service. He stared me up and down and declared it would knock some sense into me.

  At lunch break, Jacques took me to one side. He could see I was anxious, and miserable. To cheer me up, he told me about his own adventures in military service, with the Paracommandos. He had intervened in the riots in Leopoldville, shortly before the Congo secured independence, and witnessed the events that followed.

  He promised my own service would be much less challenging. I’d spend a couple of days in the cells, be knocked out once or twice and experience some memorable hangovers, and an agonising dose of the clap.

  In December, I spent most evenings over at Alex’s. I brought supplies of food and beer. In exchange, Alex supplied me with hash and marijuana.

  We ate listening to Bo Diddley, B.B. King or the Beatles, whose second album had been released a few weeks earlier, on the day that Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas shocked the world.

  Alex was unconvinced by the Beatles, despite the definitive tracks on their second album, like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’, with its stream of ‘yeahs’.

  After eating, we would light a joint under the earnest gaze of Che Guevara, and Alex would start talking. He knew my mind was made up, but he compounded my firm belief that I was doing the right thing.

  He told me the story of a decent kid of seventeen, a Midwest farmer’s boy, well-liked by all, who found himself embroiled in the Hell of Vietnam, against his will.

  One of his comrades was killed in an ambush by the Viet Cong. A few days later, they found the body. His balls had been cut off and stuffed into his mouth. Then his head had been cut off and stuck on a bamboo spike.

  Next day, the decent kid from the Midwest walked into a peaceful village and massacred an entire family by smashing their heads with his rifle butt. The women and children weren’t spared. When his officer came to put an end to the carnage, he blew his brains out.

  According to Alex, it was possible I could react like that kid, in a comparable situation. War turned men into animals and monsters. The CIA was training secret death squads whose job was to terrorise South Vietnam by killing civilians.

  We couldn’t stand by while crimes like these were perpetrated, he said. We shared in the guilt if we let such atrocities go unprotested. It was our duty to revolt. Young people had to seize power, sto
p the slaughter and encourage men to act like human beings again.

  He explained all this calmly, with a strange light in his eyes, as if he had witnessed the events he was describing.

  On New Year’s Eve, I played with Alex and The Four Fours for a private function near Ohain, in a hall hired for the occasion by a wellheeled crowd. The party had aspirations to ‘decadence’, with an Ancient Roman theme.

  Everyone was in fancy dress, us included. The men posed and camped it up in their immaculate togas. Women plastered in outrageous make-up laughed uproariously, their breasts all but bared.

  To me, the atmosphere of wild excess felt indecent, and out of place. On the other side of the world, children were being scorched by napalm bombs, Buddhist monks were pouring petrol over themselves and burning to death in the hope of raising humanity’s awareness of their plight. Innocent people were dying every minute, on both sides.

  We finished playing at around five thirty in the morning. The last guests had gone, and the van collecting our stuff wasn’t coming until the next day.

  I needed some time alone.

  Alex and the others had left.

  I carried on playing. I thrashed my drums to the point of exhaustion. Around noon, I went home. But I couldn’t sleep. Late that night, I packed my case. I took a few clothes, my wash kit and the dozen books that mattered to me the most.

  When everything was ready, I sat in the kitchen and waited for the night to be over.

  We had kept the old furniture from our apartment on Avenue de la Couronne. On the table, I could see the scratches and spots of colour from my childhood.

  My mother found me half asleep at around 6:00a.m. I told her it was time, that I had to go. I stood up and held her in my arms. I can still feel the press of her body against mine. I feel her warmth, the smell of her hair.

  She knew I was in a bad way. But she couldn’t know what what really tormented me. She told me not to worry, that it would be all right, everything would always be all right.

  I hugged her tight, unable to let go. There were tears in my eyes. She stroked my face.

  My father didn’t join us. I could see him watching from the shadows of the living room. My mother told me he wished me good luck, and that he looked forward to seeing me again in my smart uniform, when I came home on leave, standing tall and proud with my hair cut short.

  I picked up my case and left the apartment. I found the strength not to look back. My mother’s face at the window would have broken my resolve. I never imagined that was the last time I would hold her tight against my heart.

  28: DESTINATION BERLIN

  A few days after reading the detective’s report into the death of their son, contesting the verdict of suicide, Steve Parker’s parents contacted the families of the other members of Pearl Harbor to propose a meeting.

  Larry Finch’s aunt declined the invitation. Her sister, Larry’s mother, had killed herself shortly after receiving the news of her son’s death, and Larry’s aunt was unable to overcome the pain of the loss of her two closest relatives. She didn’t want to think about it ever again, and was trying to forget the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. She gave strict instructions to be left in peace and cut the call without further ado.

  Jim Ruskin’s parents agreed to the request, with a mixture of bitterness and relief. The police investigation’s conclusion, that the deaths of the four musicians were an extraordinary coincidence, was unacceptable. Jim’s father was unconvinced by the explanations he had received from the chief of police when he travelled to West Berlin to collect his son’s remains.

  Since the events of March, he had studied a number of books on the law of series, probability, significant coincidences and synchronicity.

  He was certain the deaths were connected, and suspicious. He had put forward a number of theories, but was unable to identify a single coherent motive. The call from Steve’s parents confirmed his view: other people were questioning the police’s conclusions. He would not stand alone in the face of suspicion and the impenetrable wall of officialdom any longer.

  Dirk and Caroline McDonald, parents of Paul the drummer, also agreed to meet, and invited their son’s ex-wife to join them. Jason, their grandson, refused to accept the theory of accidental death, and was convinced his father had been murdered.

  The McDonalds were alarmed by the account of their son’s movements in the days prior to his death. He had behaved like a man on the run. Paul was afraid of nothing, his father said. He wouldn’t hesitate to face up to adversity and take a stand if necessary. He was not one to shut himself away in a hotel room for no good reason.

  The meeting took place in London, at the Parkers’ home, on Saturday, July the fifteenth, 1967.

  None of the guests knew one another, they had never had occasion to meet and no one had attended the funeral of another member of Pearl Harbor.

  They felt an immediate closeness, united by the pain of losing a child.

  When everyone had arrived, Steve’s father, Gary Parker, made a short, emotional speech evoking the agony of a father who outlives his son. When he had finished, his wife served refreshments. The first hour was spent sharing memories of the dead. Some had brought photographs, which were passed around.

  Next, the Parkers introduced the assembled company to George West, the detective hired to investigate Steve’s death.

  West set out his reasons for questioning the outcome of the police investigation. He shared his findings, and the conclusions drawn. Amongst other things, he cited the tiny probability that four men sharing the same apartment and doing the same job could die within such a short space of time without some cloud of suspicion surrounding their deaths.

  Next, he invited everyone around the table to say a few words. The families shared the facts at their disposal.

  West listened attentively, took notes, asked questions. When he had collected all the available information, he made a few remarks.

  There had been inadequate coordination between the German, Spanish and British police. No organisation had taken the possibility of a connection seriously, each death had been treated in isolation. If the four deaths had been handled by a single police force, he had no doubt a more thorough-going investigation would have been launched.

  He collected his notes and highlighted a few points he had picked up during the round-table discussion. He noted that the hotel porter in Majorca had observed all Larry’s comings and goings, but had not seen him come down to the swimming pool between five and six in the morning, despite being still on duty at that time.

  Why hadn’t he seen him? How had Larry reached the pool? Why hadn’t he taken the shortest route, via the hotel lobby?

  As for Jim Ruskin’s supposed depression, cited by the Berlin police, this seemed surprising in a man whose even temper, optimism and enjoyment of life were well known. He was unlikely to have killed himself on a whim. Ruskin had just heard about the death of the group’s leader, Larry Finch, and the news would doubtless have affected him, but not to the point of suicide, particularly given his lack of awareness of the death of Steve Parker.

  Jim had talent, and his Berlin contacts would certainly have enabled him to pursue his musical career. His volatile friendship with Larry was an insufficient motive for suicide.

  Finally, the train driver’s testimony gave no explicit reason to suspect Jim had thrown himself voluntarily onto the tracks.

  As for Paul McDonald, the fact that he had bolted his door from the inside had led the police to the hasty conclusion that no one else could have got into the room. But how could they be certain Paul hadn’t let someone in, of his own accord?

  West knew the Samarkand Hotel. Paul’s room was on the fifth or sixth floor. An escape across the rooftops would have been child’s play.

  He concluded with a question. Where had the money come from?

  The musicians had all complained about their meagre salaries, and the difficulty they experienced making ends meet. Yet at the time of their deaths
, Larry Finch was staying in a four-star hotel in Majorca, Steve Parker had treated himself to the charms of several hostesses around Sankt Pauli and a very expensive, bootleg Hendrix ticket and Paul McDonald had purchased a plane ticket to London and installed himself in a luxury hotel.

  When West had finished, Steve Parker’s parents outlined their proposition. They suggested to all present that they extend the detective’s contract and pay for his continued enquiries, sharing the costs amongst themselves.

  Contrary to their expectations, everyone refused.

  Jim Ruskin’s mother was aware of her husband’s doubts on the matter. But she would rather accept the verdict of suicide than discover her son had committed some other, unspeakable act. She was still grieving and couldn’t face any further torment. She knew Jim drank and took drugs, and she thought that may have something to do with his death. She wanted to remember him as a gentle, playful, lively lad.

  Paul McDonald’s parents said they were facing financial difficulties and were in no position to fund an investigation, the outcome of which remained uncertain, despite the evidence. Paul’s ex-wife Margreth bitterly regretted the situation, but she was on the dole and couldn’t contemplate any extra expense.

  The Parkers weren’t in a position to pay the detective on their own. West had no intention of negotiating his fee; he was in high demand and his many clients were more than happy to pay what he asked.

  As he was leaving, Jim Ruskin’s father suggested taking their story to the papers. Until now, not a single journalist had shown an interest in the serial deaths.

  The proposal was adopted.

  They drafted a letter detailing the facts, and signed it jointly.

  The letter was dispatched to the main London daily papers, but attracted no favourable replies. The families shifted their focus to smaller papers and the regional press, still to no avail.