by Toby Barlow
Will blushed, embarrassed. He had not come up with a good story for how he got his bruise. He was about to attempt one when, over Guizot’s shoulder, he saw Brandon striding down the hallway. He had not expected the American until later, but he figured he might as well set things straight now. Thinking it over the night before, Will had decided that, despite all their drama, Oliver and his friends were merely silly and ridiculous creatures. There was nothing here that could not be managed. The knife, the Hoffmann-La Roche file, and all the other nonsense would get sorted as soon as Will had a chance to sit down with Brandon and lay it all out. All he had to do now was politely steer Guizot out of his office so that he could talk with his American friend.
“You know, Guizot, I hate to tell you this, but another client of mine has just arrived for a meeting. One that was actually scheduled.”
Guizot looked out the window and saw Brandon. “Let him wait!” he said, eagerly rubbing his hands together. “I need to tell you about this. Two minutes is all I ask, simply listen. It is a story about my wife. My wife, you see, is far more sophisticated than me and she likes to spend all our money on cultured things. First-edition books, lithographs, etchings, rare photographic prints, any bullshit that seems important, she buys it up. So guess what she comes home with last week?”
Will shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“She comes home from the gallery with a painting of a giant horse’s ass sticking out of a wall. Unbelievable, right?”
“I never would have guessed it.”
“Absolutely. I immediately hate this thing. I tell her this, I say, ‘What is this absurdity? This is insane!’ She says to me, ‘It is not insane. It is Surrealism.’ I tell her to get rid of it. She says no. I insist. She cries, a lot, but in the end she returns the painting and gets me my money back.”
Will was only partly listening. He looked out past Guizot again and saw two men he did not recognize enter the office hall. They shook hands with Brandon and the three waited together.
“Stop being so distracted. I am your client, look at me, Will.”
“I apologize, you have my full attention.” He could not help smiling at Guizot’s serious toue.
“Okay. Now, here is the incredible part,” Guizot continued. “Two nights ago I dreamt about this painting. I thought nothing of it. But then, last night, I had a dream about it again! This damn horse’s ass, I can’t get it out of my head!”
“Maybe you feel guilty for making your wife return it.”
“What are you, my psychiatrist? To hell with my wife. The point is, this Surrealism, it interrupts the way you think. It puts nonsense into your mind and disrupts your consciousness, twisting reality around. And this, Will, this is what my advertising must do! So, I want you to help me make an advertisement that is absolutely surreal, absurd, utterly insane, one that threatens to make my customers all go absolutely mad. That is what I want! Do you understand?”
Looking at the wild-eyed man jumping around before him, Will wondered if, despite the fact that Guizot himself was acting nuts, there could be the kernel of an idea here. But Will knew his client, and he knew he would be back in the office in two days’ time with a completely different harebrained scheme. The important thing he had to do right now was wrap up this meeting and go talk with Brandon. “I understand, I get it, I will start researching this approach right away,” Will said, escorting Guizot to the door. “Maybe check in with me a couple of days from now.”
“Wait—” Guizot began to protest, but Will cut him off.
“I like your idea. Intriguing. But I have to wrap this up, as I told you, I have a client meeting.” He gestured toward Brandon and the other two, whom his secretary was now guiding toward a conference room.
“Huh.” Guizot sniffed the air toward Brandon. “What do you sell for those guys?”
“Pharmaceuticals,” Will said, surprised to have come up with a lie so fast.
“Ah, I see,” said Guizot. “Drug peddlers. I don’t trust any of them.”
“Well, they’re certainly handy when you have a hangover. Listen, check in with me on Wednesday. I’ll have some progress for you by then.” He patted Guizot on the back and sent him off down the hallway. Then he went back to his desk, snatched up the Bayer file, and went to meet Brandon and his friends in the conference room.
Entering the room, Will looked at them seated around the table. He immediately took it as a bad sign that they had not removed their hats.
“Will, this is Mike Mitchell and Caleb White,” Brandon said. “I asked them to join me here today, hope you don’t mind.”
“Sure. No problem. Can I get you guys anything? Coffee?” Will said, sitting down.
“It’s fine, your girl is getting some for us,” said Brandon.
Will set the file on the desk. “Well, I have the Bayer research right here for you but there are a few things I wanted to talk about first,” Will said, wondering where exactly he was going to begin. When he met Oliver at the party? The scene in the back room at the bar? Or when Boris hit him with the phone book?
“Sorry, whatever you got is gonna have to wait,” said Brandon, reaching into his briefcase and pulling out a thick envelope, which he tossed onto the table in front of Will. Picking it up, Will intuitively knew what it contained even before he opened it.
Sure enough, there was the Hoffmann-La Roche file, though not the report itself, only low-quality photographs of its contents. Many of the pictures were blurred, others captured only part of a page—whoever had snapped them had been in a rush. Will briefly considered blurting out some attempt at an explanation, but a voice in his head told him to wait, there was more bad news coming.
“So what is this about?” he asked.
“Well, we were hoping you could clarify that for us.” Brandon’s tone was different, less like the arrogant collegial jock that Will had known for so long and more like a stern border patrol agent, cold and procedural. “Our people recognized it right away as one of your company’s reports, the format is identical, the language is similar. Even without any letterhead, that is easy enough to prove. Now the interesting thing is where we found it. An agent of ours managed to snap these photographs this morning when the file was being shuffled through the Soviet embassy.”
“The Soviet—?” Will was confused.
“Yes,” said Brandon. “Seems like the Reds have got their eyes and ears working here in your shop as well.”
Will let it sink in. He could not believe it. He had been both beaten and betrayed. Why had he assumed that Oliver was working on his side? The arch, upper-class accent had no doubt misled him; it would never have occurred to him that someone as clearly aristocratic and moneyed as Oliver would support the Communists. Not much about that man made any sense, but still it seemed like there had to be another explanation.
Will quickly ran through his options, for at the moment the idea of coming clean with the truth seemed very unwise. He was apparently guilty of handing over private documents to a Soviet agent. It probably would not matter that he had been blackmailed into it. After all, a great number of history’s spies had undoubtedly begun as the unfortunate victims of set-ups and extortion, but the faultless roots of their errors did not matter much to the firing squad. Will realized he should have gone to Brandon immediately, he could plainly see that, in the same way that he could also see, painfully, that it was absolutely too late now. It didn’t matter, either, that the files were, for the most part, strategically useless documents; the enemy was the enemy, and he had, somewhat inadvertently, but certainly not inadvertently enough, provided the enemy with information. He needed time, and he needed to find Oliver. There had to be an explanation. “Of course, I want to help in any way I can. What are your next steps?”
“Well, right now I honestly don’t have time to work on this. I’ve got some bigger things going on. But the agency is concerned about it, so I’d like to hand the case over to Mitchell and White here to sort out. If you could get them copies of
your agency’s personnel files, they’ll sniff out where your possible leaks might be,” said Brandon. “Of course, we can’t arrest anyone ourselves, and bringing the French authorities into it probably wouldn’t be smart. But once the suspects are identified, we can take the appropriate action.”
“I see,” said Will, nodding along. “Okay, no problem, I’ll talk to personnel and have copies of the files for your guys the day after tomorrow. Wednesday afternoon at the latest. But I really don’t think you’re gonna find anyone of interest here. It is only an advertising agency, after all, it’s not exactly thick with espionage.”
Brandon grinned and got up. “Well, it’s thick enough. The file came out of this office. That’s all we know now. We’ll figure out the rest. Thanks for your cooperation.” He started to leave, and then stopped. “Oh, what was it you wanted to discuss?”
Will smiled and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, it can wait. Don’t forget this.” He slid the Bayer file across the desk.
“Right.” Brandon said, picking it up. “Thanks again. We’ll be in touch.” He headed out, followed by his two silent colleagues, whose names Will had already forgotten.
Sitting there, Will’s mind went back to Guizot, his wife, and the story of the painting. He felt like he was the horse’s ass sticking out from the wall. But it did not feel terribly surreal, it felt all too real.
III
The ugly old woman had replaced Madame Vertan. She was quite different from the cold and efficient Madame Vertan, who had never said a word but only stared at the patients as she worked with a look of stoic judgment. This new woman never stopped talking, mostly to herself, as she changed bedpans, laid out linens and towels, and sloshed the mop bucket about. At first Noelle wondered if she was another one of the hospital’s patients, because she seemed a bit loopy, raw and rude, even slightly frightening. But by the second day of having her around, Noelle realized the old woman was utterly harmless, even entertaining.
“Bah, all this piss smells like poison,” the old woman said, dumping the bedpan’s contents into a bucket. “It’s the pills they stuff you with and the lousy food. It’s a wonder you’re not stone dead with the swill they make you choke down.” Another time, as she was mopping the hall, she said, “What a bird knows, she flies south with. What a pig knows, dies in his sty. Ha ha.” Later that afternoon, the old woman, down on her knees with the scrub brush, seemed almost lost in a reverie, going back and forth in muttering conversation with herself: “The prince’s winter chalet? Remember? No, where? Prussia, you fool. Yes, yes, he fed us peacock with pickled radishes and sherry wine, there was stuffed goose and marrow, pigs’ cheeks and oysters and abalone. Ha, that was a meal…”
Noelle could not believe that a woman scrubbing urine stains off the floor could have ever dined with a prince, and the food she was describing sounded disgusting. “Who eats a peacock?” she asked out loud, unable to contain her curiosity.
The old woman stopped her work to look up at the girl. “I’ll barter a question for a question: Who ate the first egg that dropped out of a chicken’s ass?” She paused for a moment, waiting for Noelle to answer. When the girl said nothing, the old woman blurted out the rest. “A hungry person, that’s who.” Then she went back to her scrubbing, still talking to Noelle. “But it’s not always the fancy food that tastes delicious. My sisters and I camped for six seasons on a Yamna farmer’s land. He would scoop eel out of the river for us and fry it with truffles he’d foraged and fresh sweet butter from his cows. Delicious. He was a dense and stupid oaf, but he was strong and big and he always smelled like horseshit. Oh yes”—the old woman paused again in her scrubbing—“nothing is as good as the smell of horseshit. You know, the streets are swept clean now, and all the horses are gone, so there is nothing in the air but the soot of your burning engines.” She went back to her scrubbing. “That’s why I like to sleep in a barn, to be close to real smells. Horseshit and horse farts. Those are the smells of life.”
That made Noelle giggle. A little smile crossed the old woman’s lips. Then she returned to her work and did not speak again.
IV
Witches’ Song Three
Ah, ugh, agh, we pull at our skulls
and gnash our wasted teeth watching.
Why always the cracked cups, Elga, why never the whole ones?
The old woman’s no better than a corrupt conscription officer out rousting feeble drunks.
With bum dumb warriors such as these it is no wonder
we are only a few fingers’ count from lost.
Our odds always long,
now here we are sinking low into polder bog,
desperately reaching and clutching at this single bare stalk
that looks far too weak to offer safety.
So many enemies, countless routs,
even our most sacred rites and pious celebrations of renewal
snatched up by that insatiable and foul pope beast.
See him sit proud and poised,
branded with the crusader’s crucifix,
braying on about his mewling manger,
promising eternal life
and bottomless vessels of wine for all anointed.
Now there’s a pandering peddler.
He forever extols the virtues of love and compassion
while his crusading Knights Templar
slice at the bare babes’ throats.
He can bear no other tale, take no rival myth,
and in his absolute hunger to rule he tore down and cooked up
every sharp-tongued woman in his path,
even turning on his own, his blessed, his consecrated,
the poor, fevered nuns, no more than sick or delirious,
only mad with loneliness,
brokenhearted in their sunbaked convents,
suffering amid the spiraling vertigo
of eternal ennui.
There, standing stone-faced amid their magpie cries for grace,
the priest raised his hand for silence and said simply
and solemnly, burn
sisters burn.
Ghosts, they say, stay for three simple reasons:
they love life too wholly to leave,
they love some other too deeply to part,
or they need to linger on for a bit,
to coax a distant knife
toward its fated throat.
V
Vidot the flea was exhausted. He rested, hanging upside down beneath the couch of his rival’s apartment. Over the past two days he had learned all that he could possibly want to know about the man. He had been certain that his investigations would unearth evidence of a great villain, but what he discovered was a decent enough individual with a perfectly ordinary life.
The man’s name, which Vidot had painstakingly traced out on letterheads and various envelopes lying throughout the apartment, was Alberto Perruci. He was Italian, a philosophy professor working at the University of Paris. He had a wife named Mimi. She worked as an assistant photo editor at Festival magazine. She was a very attractive woman; in fact, Vidot had to admit that even she was more beautiful than his Adèle. Mimi clearly adored her husband and would wrap her arms around him when he came through the door, kissing his neck with warm affection before resting her head against his chest.
Why would such a man need another lover? How insatiable was his greed? Many Europeans—Italians, Spanish, and French—all kept lovers; Vidot did not understand it, but he accepted it as a fact. Still, this woman cooked, she cleaned, and she waited on her husband with a complete unwavering devotion that impressed Vidot. His Adèle was certainly, by all appearances, a good wife, but she never knelt to remove his shoes at the end of the day, she never poured him an aperitif and brought it to his side while he read his evening paper, she never sat in his lap and tickled his ears when they listened to the radio. His respect and instinctive affection for the beautiful Mimi made his heart ache in overwhelming empathy for all the betrayals in the world.
He barely recognized his wife: in Alberto’s presence this prim and proper woman instantly became a creature of lust; her eyes watered with hunger and her mouth opened wide as she avidly kissed him until she had to gasp for breath. Vidot felt sick and instinctively returned to his only comfort at hand, once again digging his jaws deep into Alberto for more vengeful—and succulent—sustenance.
About twenty minutes later, lying dazed and nearly unconscious amid the man’s thick hairs, he was suddenly roused by the sound of his own name. Scurrying again up to the peak of Alberto’s skull to listen, he saw his beautiful Adèle lying naked on the bed, recounting how a policeman had called to say that Vidot was off on an undercover investigation. She said that while this was certainly convenient for the two of them, it was also odd, as her husband surely would have mentioned it. Alberto kissed her cheek and told her they must make the most of this little vacation together. He rose to dress. Vidot was so distracted thinking about what his wife had said—why would the station say that he was off on some secret mission?—that he missed the critical moment and so once more found himself trapped beneath Alberto’s hat.
When Alberto arrived home, Mimi had greeted her husband with the usual ardor, laughingly telling a tale of models running around the magazine’s office in their frilly underwear. Alberto had laughed too, patting her bottom affectionately and pouring them both wine while she pulled a casserole out from the oven. Vidot was flummoxed by the casual ease with which his rival moved from scene to scene. This Italian was a marvel.