by Jean Echenoz
They drank to their stay in Creuse, remembering the good times. The girl, though, said Christian, I mean, say what you like, but she was hot. That’s a fact, Jean-Pierre agreed, loosening the knot of his tie. I had a soft spot for her too, but what can you do? That’s not our world. I wonder what happened to her, Christian said dreamily. If I understood things correctly, analyzed Jean-Pierre, we should be seeing her again pretty soon. And her idiot husband, Christian wondered, you think he ended up paying?
The idiot is at this moment sprawled on his barrel-dyed leather couch, in front of his BeoVision Bang & Olufsen, a glass of Laphroaig Cask Strength Red Stripe in one hand, his other containing a Logitech Harmony Touch remote control, with which he zaps through several hundred channels, each one flashing up on-screen for no more than a few seconds. In the kitchen, behind the bar, Nadine Alcover is loading the dishwasher. She and the idiot ate dinner together just now, without finding much to say to each other: I made a mess of this roast, Nadine Alcover said between two silences. Not at all, it was very nice, Tausk replied after a moment of silence, all the while checking his texts on his smartphone. And that is how things stand now: calm, very calm.
Once she has started the dishwasher, Nadine Alcover goes up to her bedroom and calls Lucile, who answers right away. They exchange some small talk before quickly moving on to the subject of their love lives. How’s it going, Nadine Alcover asks, with your old man? He’s recovered from his accident, replies Lucile, but sometimes . . . I don’t know . . . I have the feeling that, sexually, there’s only one thing he’s interested in. As if that’s all I’m good for. There are days when I wonder. I think I see what you mean, says Nadine Alcover. It’s not exactly like that with Louis. But I do think sometimes, him or someone else, you know? I think I see what you mean, echoes Lucile. So are you still coming tomorrow night? Nadine Alcover asks her.
And the next day, Lucile and Lessertisseur do indeed turn up at Lou Tausk’s apartment for dinner. This is the first time and they are embarrassed, Lessertisseur in particular. But then again, Tausk knows nothing about his role in the kidnapping of Constance, and neither does Nadine Alcover. And Lucile’s an idiot, so she won’t cause any problems. Little by little, Maurice Lessertisseur relaxes. Anyway, that whole thing is over now: the actors have dispersed; Constance has gone home. Lessertisseur accepts a drink and a chair, and by the time he’s finished his second drink his scruples have dissolved. So let’s turn the page. And go through to the dining room. And soon, sitting at the table, the page does turn. The page seems to turn effortlessly, in fact, as soon as they begin conversing, animatedly, on various subjects.
Here, we had planned to transcribe that conversation in detail. As it warmed up and developed, we had even planned to go into greater depth on the subjects mentioned: political, social, cultural, and soon even intimate events. We were just about to do that when the double gong on the front door rings in a descending major third. Are you expecting someone? Lucile asks. I don’t think so, says Nadine Alcover, surprised. Go see who it is, suggests Tausk.
Less than a minute later, followed by a perplexed Nadine Alcover, we open the door to Clément Pognel, a skinny dog at his heels, one hand raised, containing his Astra Cub pistol, and suddenly the page seems to have more difficulty turning. Yes, it’s really struggling. It’s resolutely stuck, in fact. The page wouldn’t turn if you put a gun to its head. The joke’s over, declares Pognel.
28
BUT THE EVENING did not last long. And the next morning, Lou Tausk got up early, letting Nadine Alcover sleep in, so he could go to the studio on Rue de Pali-Kao, where he limited himself to reading the newspaper and glancing at his mail, tidying away four papers on his desk, moving two objects—a stapler and an ashtray—and then immediately putting them back where they were before. Around one o’clock, with the air having grown milder and the sun tempting a breakaway, he went out to eat lunch at the Pensive Mandarin. He sat alone on the terrace, warmed by infrared lamps and protected from the wind by a translucent tarpaulin.
Let’s observe him as he sits in front of a bowl of bún bò, remembering the previous night’s events. He did not really understand Clément Pognel’s intervention, as—to sum up—his former partner in crime stayed no more than fifteen minutes, quickly pocketing the Astra Cub before accepting a drink and caressing his dog, looking around at the people and the place, not saying much at all except a brief, cold line addressed to Tausk to the effect that he was glad to see he was doing well. Tausk did have time to notice how Pognel had changed in the last thirty years, however. And he really had changed in quite a lot of ways. Not only did he walk with a limp now, but Tausk had been surprised by his insolence when he took a seat between Lucile and Nadine Alcover, brushing against them and staring at them disdainfully—he had not been like that back in the day—and, even more so, when he rudely grabbed a piece of rind from Lucile’s plate and dropped it on the carpet for his dog, which devoured it, growling and slobbering with satisfaction. Take it easy, Faust. Pognel had smiled then, and Tausk had not liked that mutt of his at all. He did not understand the reasons for this brief intrusion, nor for that sudden departure, as if Pognel had come only to verify something. Nor did he understand why Lucile and Maurice had looked so embarrassed before they, too, left in a hurry.
Looking up for a moment from the terrace of the Mandarin, Tausk sees a Boeing with the usual vapor trails behind it, the water condensed by the minus four degrees Fahrenheit temperature up there, forming a white thread of ice crystals that blooms in an irregular triangular halo, an artificial cloud that soon turns fluffy and, already blurred by the translucent tarpaulin, fades before lightening and falling to pieces. Returning his attention to his bún bò, Tausk quickly forgets that Air China B777-300ER, headed to Beijing, boarded, one hour before this, by Constance and her bodyguards, who are sitting in different parts of the plane: the guards in economy class, she in the luxurious Forbidden Pavilion class, where she has just been served her second glass of Armand de Brignac with a dish of raw caviar while Jean-Pierre and Christian, many rows behind, were given only a defrosted club sandwich in a blister pack and a lukewarm Tsingtao.
The flight lasted eleven hours: Constance slept pretty well, Jean-Pierre and Christian hardly at all. Broken in three on their seats, they watched the beginnings of a few movies, yawning, tried a couple of video games, and fruitlessly begged for another beer before the 777 started its descent—cabin crew, doors to manual and cross-check—to the international airport, where all three of them were transferred to a transit lounge.
The visa formalities had already been dealt with by General Bourgeaud’s department, but they still had to fill out quite a few forms: following the instructions they’d been given in Paris, Jean-Pierre and Christian wrote “tour operator” in the box for occupation, and Constance “singer.” They then flew to Pyongyang on board a single-class Yunshuji Y-7 twin-engine turboprop, designed to land and take off in a rural setting and belonging to the national fleet of Air Koryo. Even though this airline figures in flashing red capital letters on the blacklist of companies at risk, and despite the dilapidation of the airplane itself—wobbly seats with missing armrests, tables not properly attached to seatbacks, frayed seat belts—they reached their destination without too much in the way of turbulence, air pockets, or other problems.
First, they saw two surprisingly long runways, above which, before landing, the plane seemed to circle endlessly, as if to let the passengers admire their immensity. After landing, they had to stay in their seats for a while, the roar of the engines slowly dying like at the end of a washing machine’s spin cycle. The international airport of Sunan was merely a modest, low, old-fashioned building. The only new (or perhaps old but meticulously maintained) ornaments inside it were tall, full-length portraits of the forebears (father and grandfather) of the incumbent dictator. About five hundred yards away, perhaps in anticipation of a massive rise in air traffic, stood another, much bigger building, made of glass and steel. This building
was surrounded by fields that looked as if they had not been sown extensively. Standing in those fields, arms hanging uselessly, dressed in gray, brown, or beige anoraks and quilted parkas, were a few farmers who, for lack of anything better to do, were watching the planes land and take off.
In the airport’s opaque lobby, soldiers stood guard and a few Chinese businessmen waited in cerulean-blue plastic chairs below display screens that in airports all over the world usually blink with hundreds of arrivals and departures but which here showed only three destinations: Vladivostok, Kuala Lumpur (twice a week), and Beijing. Some elegant locals, who’d gotten off the airplane at the same time as Constance, and who must have been pretty close to the regime to have been allowed to leave the country in the first place, pushed carts full of Western alcohol, designer clothes, and flat-screen TVs toward the exits. She had attempted, during the flight, to address a few words in English to one of these North Koreans, who was sitting next to her, but—whether through ignorance or suspicion—he had responded only with a silent quarter smile. Going through customs was much simpler than she’d imagined, with the formalities reduced to a bare minimum: a glance at her passport, automatically confiscated; another at the brand of her telephone, also seized; and a receipt certifying that all this would be returned to her upon departure.
At the end of the lobby, a soldier made a right-angle bow in front of Constance before introducing himself: Major Bakh Kang-dae or something like that. A star on his cap, a badge depicting the father and grandfather, a shoulder harness buckled over an extremely well-ironed uniform. He wished to welcome her to the country, a huge honor, etcetera, and to announce that they were now going to take her to her residence. Constance followed him to a Pyeonghwa Junma limousine, a copy of South Korea’s SsangYong Chairman, which is in turn merely a clone of the Mercedes E. As Jean-Pierre and Christian attempted to follow this movement, they were courteously intercepted by two civilians who were waiting just behind Major Bakh: a man and a woman, smiling, relaxed, who introduced themselves—Yun Sam-yong, Im Chin-sun—as a (male) guide and (female) translator who were here to take care of them and, first of all, accompany them to their hotel. Sorry, said Jean-Pierre, offended, but we’re traveling with madame. But Im and Yun did not seem to hear him and, no less smiley but more determined, guided the two men to a less luxurious vehicle, the Pyeonghwa Premio. They got inside.
The Hotel Yanggakdo, said Im, a very good hotel, you’ll see, you’ll be fine there. And her smile grew wider as the car picked up speed. She gave them the usual instructions, all in the form of interdictions—talking politics, leaving the hotel unaccompanied, talking politics, going out at night, and talking politics—while they moved through a formless countryside, then an indistinct suburb, before finally entering Pyongyang.
And in the capital, all seemed peaceful, normal, new. Peaceful were the cyclists, the groups of people waiting at bus stations, the pedestrians walking along or crossing the broad tree-lined avenues, their wide sidewalks lined with little lawns where, here and there, a man or a woman was crouching, apparently searching in the grass for some indeterminate purpose, perhaps cleaning or harvesting. Normal was the traffic: well, there wasn’t a great deal of it, but it wasn’t suspiciously sparse either—more cars than you might expect, all of them recently manufactured, as well as trams, vans, buses, some of these considerably older, with exhaust pipes that sometimes emitted thick dark farts of smoke. New were the numerous tall, pale buildings; there were also some less-new buildings in pastel colors: pink, ocher, yellow, mauve. It was normal, too, that everything should be new, as the U.S. Air Force had destroyed the city with millions of liters of napalm and millions of tons of incendiary bombs and earthquake bombs in the winter of 1950, which is not really that long ago. Right now, it was definitely lacking in exoticism; the atmosphere was calm and the sky cloudless.
The Yanggakdo, an upmarket hotel, had been built on an island of the Taedong River, in the center of the capital, a location that simplified the prohibition on going out after nightfall. Fifty stories high (though only the top six appeared to be in use), it comprised one thousand rooms. Among the buttons on its six elevators—the wait for which was often long and uncertain—there was no number 5, even though it was clear from outside that a fifth floor existed. Other than that, the empty corridors were vast and the chambermaids quite pretty.
Jean-Pierre and Christian were given two neighboring rooms on the forty-fifth floor. They were spacious and poorly lit—none of the bulbs being more than twelve watts—which did not help to distinguish the style of furniture (midway between Lévitan and Brezhnev). The quite pretty receptionist told them right away that there would be (relatively) hot water for a brief while around six thirty p.m., and then again tomorrow, around six thirty a.m. The windows in these rooms overlooked the river, separated from the base of the hotel by narrow bands of sloping gardens and a construction site.
After leaving their bags in the rooms, they went downstairs and looked around. The hotel had several restaurants, albeit only one that was open: a vast, cube-shaped, empty dining room where they absorbed two or three indistinct bits of meat that they did not try to identify, soaked in a puddle of oil: it wasn’t great, obviously, but nor was it any worse than they’d feared. Near a bar decorated with aquariums containing turtles and suckerfish, a tailor was offering to make—in five minutes, and for next to nothing—tracksuits and safari jackets in the style of Kim Jong-il and dark jackets à la Sun Yat-sen. They knocked back a Taedonggang beer at the bar before taking a quick look at the few game rooms—a bowling alley, pool and Ping-Pong tables lit by dim fluorescent tubes—then, before nightfall, they went back to their rooms, where, in the absence of television sets, they again looked out of the window: on the sloping gardens, a swarm of men and women seemed to be weeding the grass, unless their objective was botanical or nutritious.
They had also been warned that the electricity would be cut at ten p.m., a fact that did not prevent the men on the construction site opposite the hotel from working late into the night, the rumble reaching them even on the forty-fifth floor. Its sound was joined by that of martial music and propaganda slogans disseminated by a number of vans equipped with loudspeakers, which blared their message until midnight.
29
AS FOR CONSTANCE, the residence where Major Bakh was supposed to take her looked very different. Located in Munsu-dong, one of the more salubrious districts in the capital, and surrounded by beautifully maintained grounds, this opulent villa was no different from all the opulent European or American villas inhabited here and there, in very rich countries, by very rich people in their very own private ghettos. Protected from prying eyes by a wall of weeping willows, its architecture showed not the slightest Asian influence—no pagoda roof, no stone lions or varnished tiles or what have you—and the crunch of the Junma’s white tires on the equally white gravel, when the limousine braked outside the porch, surmounted by a majestic awning, was the same as everywhere else in the world, from Palm Beach to Monaco.
They were stopped several times before entering this domain, situated in an occupied zone cut off from the rest of the city by barriers, barbed-wire fences, and three successive filter blockades, reinforced by sandbags and guarded by impassive soldiers in sentry boxes. Bowing perpendicularly at the approach of the limousine, these sentries opened the barriers as soon as Major Bakh, lowering his window, flashed them a badge between two gloved fingers.
The major, sitting next to Constance on the backseat, remained silent throughout the journey. Then, in front of the porch, after the chauffeur had cut the engine, he told her: You’re going to get some rest here. It’s a winter residence belonging to Comrade Gang Un-ok. And Constance, recalling this name mentioned by the general, realized that she was close to her goal. A servant rushed over to open the car door for her, another grabbed her bags, and then a third, after the ascension of three wide waxed ceramic steps, threw open the villa’s double-leaf door. In the marble entrance hall, illuminated by
immense windows and with two symmetrical staircases rising from its center, stood a squadron of staff in impeccable uniforms. Arranged in a perfect line, they first bowed in unanimous reverence, then one after another: they were democratic people’s versions of stewards, butlers, chambermaids, linen maids, cooks, gardeners, factotums, and other footmen. They all seemed happy with their lives and well fed, and all displayed the same delighted smile. The major entrusted Constance to the steward, articulating three laconic syllables before bowing in turn to the young woman and disappearing. Left alone with the staff, she listened as the smooth snore of the limousine faded slowly to silence.
After Constance had been led to her room by the steward, followed by a footman carrying her suitcase, he asked her if there was anything she required, offering tea or other refreshments. She politely declined and then she was alone, and she felt the same impression again: the villa was, like the villas of rich people in our own lands, luxuriously decorated and impersonally furnished, and above all there was nothing to indicate that she was in Asia, except for two antiques—a celadon duckling on the chest of drawers and a Joseon-era seal on a pedestal near the window. To the right of the seal there was a massive Samsung television, which Constance turned on without much hope. To her surprise, there was a multitude of channels available: Chinese, Japanese, Australian, even CNN, BBC World, and TV5 Monde, although the latter three were supposed to personify the image and the voice of evil.