by Jean Echenoz
These were his last words because, in the blink of an eye, the man with the ax took his head clean off, validating his premonition a little while earlier, back when he was still peaceably enjoying Constance’s company. While his head rolled on the ground, face frozen in an exaggerated pout, the man with the assault rifle paused for a moment while smiling at Pognel before determining his fate with two volleys of gunfire. The first volley drilled a series of perforations into the former convict’s waist, and the second completed the work, removing the threads of flesh between these perforations so that Clément Pognel fell to the ground in two neat halves, where they lay side by side.
Making the most of that pause, Objat grabbed Constance’s hand and ran toward the open gate. Just in time—a 40 mm grenade exploded behind them, but, sheltered by the chicane, they were protected from its effects. Two seconds later, they were seized very firmly and without any words of welcome by three South Korean soldiers, technically under the orders of an American major, who led them directly, and still without a word, to a debriefing room.
From that moment on, we lose all trace of them.
40
SEVERAL MONTHS WILL PASS. Still ignorant of the failure of Gang Un-ok’s attempted defection, General Bourgeaud will settle to his task in a cheerful frame of mind. He will still have plenty of time to develop the Zimbabwe operation, as his contacts there will require a delay before marking out the terrain.
With regard to certain logistical points, however, he will miss the presence of Paul Objat: still no news on that front. He doesn’t know any more about him than we do; in fact, we are better informed than him, having seen Objat disappear with Constance. And, while the general could not care less about Constance—a mere subsidiary piece of bait in his eyes, no less interchangeable than a nut or bolt in an engine—we do not feel the same way at all. We miss Constance every bit as much as we miss Objat, but when it comes to their fate, we are reduced to conjecture. Did that simultaneous vanishing give rise to love or antipathy? If love, was it lasting or not, a definitive passion or a one-night fiasco? If antipathy, can we believe that after the debriefing they went their separate ways, each of them swearing never to cross paths with the other again? Or might we think that, on the contrary, they roam the world together, leading an ardent, tumultuous life? We might think that. That or something else.
Amid this uncertainty, let us rely on proven facts. Several events will occur during this time. Tausk, first, having informed Hyacinth of the Zimbabwean job offer made by General Bourgeaud, will suggest that his friend accompany him. Hyacinth, glimpsing the possibility of his life being transformed, will most enthusiastically agree. They will meet several times to speak about the project—at the Pensive Mandarin and elsewhere—and, consequently, their friendship will grow stronger again.
On the other hand, after several walks in different parks and museums and other preliminary chores, Tausk will end up screwing the platinum-bunned assistant who, over time, will prove a very good way of killing time. Charlotte will even reveal herself to be an insatiable, if somewhat exhausting partner, to the point that Tausk, by now firm friends with Hyacinth again, will invite him to form a threesome, if only so he can take a break now and again. This proposal will produce an enigmatic “Why not?” smile on Hyacinth’s face and provoke an eager response from the assistant, warmly supportive of this plan.
Several vigorous sessions will then take place, after each of which Charlotte, on her last legs, will go to sleep while Tausk and Hyacinth move through to the living room, warming a glass of Rum Nation Barbados rum in their left hands, smoke curling from a huge Partagás Torpedo held in their right, each of them ensconced in a comfortable armchair, chatting quietly and daydreaming about their future in southern Africa. So, how far is it from Ivory Coast exactly, Zimbabwe? Hang on a minute, Lou Tausk will say, searching for his MacBook, let me find out. Ah yes, here it is. Okay, well, basically, it’s about three thousand miles from Abidjan to Harare. Oh, I see, Hyacinth will shrug, frowning. Not exactly next door, then.
When Hyacinth has gone home, Tausk will go his bedroom and rejoin the sleeping Charlotte before she in turn goes home: having had his fingers burned by Nadine Alcover, Tausk will refrain from allowing the bun to move in with him. Not only is her conversation fairly boring, limited at best to harping on about her memories of a business trip to Chile—you’ve got geysers, you’ve got penguins, you’ve got lots of things like that—but Tausk will also be wary of the idea of her sponging off him. A wariness that will grow even stronger when she loses her job at Hubert’s office: only to be expected—he was bound to pay the price for the bad company he was keeping. First suspected and then convicted of embezzlement, he will also be found guilty of receiving stolen goods, extortion, money laundering, and being an accessory to forgery. Promptly expelled from the Paris bar, he will go into compulsory liquidation, forcing him to shut down his business and fire his staff: Charlotte, in other words.
More bad news: General Bourgeaud will eventually find out about the failure of Operation Gang Un-ok, a project for which he was solely responsible. When his superiors are informed of this failure, soon afterwards, he will be summoned to a closed committee meeting. Here, the general will be made to understand that his bosses are very unhappy with his initiative, the success of which he had been counting on to improve his standing with them. Instead of which, the general will be dismissed, removed from his position, sent into retirement—and you’re lucky that we’re not demoting you. When he will attempt to protest, to justify his plan, they will scornfully reply that, even aside from its disastrous denouement, the plan he organized without informing his superiors—a serious error on an internal level—was also inopportune, even counterproductive: a much more serious error on an international level. When Bourgeaud rebels by asking why, they will tell him to be quiet. He wants explanations? Well, he’s going to get them.
It is in the interests of a number of major world powers, notably those (China, Russia, Japan, the United States, South Korea) that participate in the six-party talks with the Kim regime, to maintain North Korea in its current form. Their rants about human rights are just lip service, as in reality each has excellent economic, strategic, or geopolitical reasons for wishing the preservation of such a useful state. But, the general will cut in, red-faced, haven’t you seen what goes on over there? Again, he will be told to keep quiet while they explain to him that such a state, albeit based on some regrettable practices, is convenient for everyone, contributing as it does, whatever its methods, to perpetuating the global equilibrium, which is, believe us, extremely fragile, they will remind the general, before informing him that he may leave. So Bourgeaud will go back to the barracks to organize or destroy his papers and take one last look at his empty desk, having first made arrangements to cancel the Zimbabwe expedition.
Which, obviously, deprives us of a sequence that we would happily have shot aboard a Boeing: either on location or in a studio, depending on our budget. As a smokescreen, Tausk and Hyacinth would have traveled to Africa separately: the general imagined Hyacinth in business class, disguised as an African businessman, cream suit and tie with chocolate-colored shirt, black sunglasses, and a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, downing whiskey after whiskey, while Tausk, disguised as nothing in economy class, would have stared at the plastic cup of Coke Zero posed on the narrow little folding table. Yes, that could have been a pretty nice little scene. Even if there was a strong risk that it would be cut during the editing process. Well, anyway, let’s move on.
General Bourgeaud (full name: Georges Bourgeaud du Lieul de Thû) will retire to his family manor in Poitou, where he will settle down to a life of smoking and disenchantment with his young new wife, Nadine Bourgeaud du Lieul de Thû. Who, as soon as the wedding—carried out in the manor’s private chapel—is completed, will phone Lucile from her spacious third-floor bedroom to give her all the details of her happiness. So, anyway, how are you? I’m okay, Lucile will reply, it’s Maurice who’s not
in great shape.
And for good reason. Unemployed, and gradually being abandoned by Lucile, Lessertisseur is a bit of a sorry sight right now. The wound he received on Rue d’Abbeville has reopened and is very painful. Shut up in his apartment on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, unshaven, pale-faced and sticky-eyed, Maurice Lessertisseur will let himself go. Not only that, but he’s completely broke and, consequently, the absence of any foundation (an expensive product) on his forehead means that his New Guinea birthmark is visible once more. He has nothing to do but go over the past (recent or remote), particularly—and nostalgically—those happy days spent in Creuse. Scenes from his time there keep flashing into his mind: the hostage’s appealing physical appearance, Victor’s visits, the warmth of the evenings, aperitifs under the lime tree in the company of Jean-Pierre and Christian: the tall, shy, not very bright but very likable one, and the rounder, more lively, also pretty likable and also not especially bright one. Paused friendships. What has become of them?
Well, as concerns Jean-Pierre and Christian, the news is not particularly good either. We left Christian, if you remember, suffering from food poisoning—an ailment that can usually be successfully treated with a simple medication in a matter of a few days. In his case, however, it is dragging on. Christian complained a great deal to begin with; he no longer complains but has started saying crazy things all the time. We have to call Victor, he repeats in a feeble voice. Only Victor can get me out of this. You’re talking nonsense, observes Jean-Pierre; you’re delirious. Besides, we have no way of getting hold of Victor, as you know perfectly well. He’s vanished off the face of the earth.
The situation is such that they never leave their room anymore. There are no more guided walks or organized visits in the capital. There is no way of obtaining a medical repatriation or any form of diplomatic aid, as France has no embassy in North Korea. Jean-Pierre, who is struggling to see a way out of this situation, will not in any case have time to find one. Because very soon after the death of Gang, whose complicity with Western agents will be established without difficulty, the authorities will quickly inventory all the foreigners residing in Pyongyang and even more quickly establish a connection to the two occupants of the Yanggakdo, where, fifteen minutes later, three civilians led by a soldier in a gigantic olive-green helmet will bypass the reception desk and go up to the room where Christian is raving continually like a madman, watched over by Jean-Pierre, who has given up trying to get a word in edgeways.
They will be arrested, imprisoned, and then put on trial for several charges: attempted subversion of the DPRK, espionage, anti-government propaganda, and illegal entry into the country, which will be enough to condemn them in no time to the death penalty. As they will be advised to confess, they will confess, enabling their sentence to be commuted to forced labor for life, which is essentially the same thing, only slower. They will spend six trying months in Labor Camp 22, escaping imminent death thanks to a diplomatic intervention by the French government, their liberation being provided in return for a large sum of money under the official cover of food aid. And so, six months later, they will get off the airplane in Villacoublay, weakened by severe weight loss and covered in scars and bruises. In addition to this, Christian will have lost two fingers from his right hand, while Jean-Pierre will be blind in one eye.
But that’s enough of the future: we have to cut from this scene because another, more urgent one has just arrived. After an equally long absence, Constance Coste and Paul Objat have also just returned to France. We will, of course, provide you with more details of this story, as and when they reach us, in the next chapter.
41
LET US PROCEED in an orderly fashion.
As far as we have been able to reconstruct events, Constance and Paul Objat were taken in hand by the South Korean security services as soon as they escaped from the DMZ and subjected to in-depth interrogation. An oppressive and repetitive procedure which took place in offices close to the zone: subdued lighting and microphones everywhere; cameras on tripods equipped with invisible lenses; the steady hum of air-conditioning; two-way mirrors with plainclothes agents taking notes behind them. Three weeks of individual interviews to start with, during which each of them had to give their own version of events, completely cut off from the other.
Well versed in such practices, having been part of a debriefing team when he was younger, Objat supplied his interviewers with the story he supposed they wanted, while Constance, though not well versed in anything, did the same. Transferred to Seoul, they were interrogated simultaneously to bring their versions together. Everything tallied and seemed to fit perfectly, except for the one minor detail that the young woman kept calling Paul Objat by the name Victor. But the agents of the (National Intelligence Service) overlooked this discordance, attributing it to fatigue and stress.
After taking into consideration their completed mission, the low probability of them causing trouble, and their compatible psychological profiles, the authorities moved them into the same apartment, occupying the entire top floor of a pleasant building. The place was spacious enough to allow them to remain alone or to be together, as they preferred. To begin with, they each stayed in their own room, enjoying the peaceful terrace view of tree-lined paths in Dosan Park. Verandas, solarium, swimming pool: while the apartment had every luxury imaginable, allowing its guests to relax and abandon themselves to comfort, it was also riddled with undetectable, omnipresent cameras and microphones because, while their interrogation results seemed fine, well . . . you never know.
During their first days in Seoul, Constance and Paul Objat did not exactly avoid each other, but they might as well have. Constance slept a great deal, while Objat, keen to be left in peace, spent his time scrambling his access codes and deactivating all his passwords in order to remain beyond the reach of Bourgeaud—whose disgrace he did not yet know about—and, more generally, of anyone on Boulevard Mortier. So they didn’t see much of each other, and they didn’t speak much either. They would hang about near the hot tub without ever looking up at each other, their sun loungers at a distance, their eyes concealed behind sunglasses. Objat silently leafed through the international press while Constance mutely deciphered the indications on a Japanese total sunblock. This silence was, as it happens, perfectly understandable: they had no desire to mention recent events, to comment on certain facts, to clear up any points that remained obscure, as they had done enough of that during the debriefing.
When this silence became oppressive, they attempted to lighten it by exchanging newspapers for sunblock, making remarks about the viewpoints of one or the effects of the other. Tacitly, to begin with, before risking a few words, then whole sentences, initially limited to subject-verb-complement, then becoming increasingly decorated with circumstantial subordinate prepositions: the birth of a conversation, even if Objat found it hard to get through to her that his name was Paul, not Victor. And yet Paul is a very simple name. Pretty easy to remember, you’d think.
This state of play could not last, of course. One evening, they naturally wound up in bed, to the satisfaction of both Constance and Victor. Sorry, I mean Paul. When they went through the DMZ together, she had liked it when he offered her his arm. And, going farther back, during her stay in Creuse, when he came to see her at the farm. In fact, even farther back, if you can recall their first meeting in Trocadéro—nearly a year ago now—you will remember that she was not immune to his charms even then. So, the birth of a love affair, too. A love that might, given that we are in the thirty-eighth parallel north, be qualified almost as tropical, if you can ignore the odd jet missile. A love that featured as part of our hypotheses regarding the future the other day: so let’s congratulate ourselves on our intuitions.
The weeks that followed were perfect, as beginnings often are. But unlike many other lovers, Constance and Paul did not fall into the usual traps, did not make the classic chimerical plans made by couples in the first flush of love. There was no question of them fleeing their past
lives, running off to the ends of the earth to live there together forever, as is customary. No, they simply enjoyed these moments. True, they did spend some time, in those first evenings, sitting on the terrace together hand in hand (some things truly are obligatory), watching the sun set gloriously over the Seoul skyline. But then they started spending less and less time watching the sun. Then, after a while, they decided that Seoul, though very nice, was something they could do without. And, without telling anyone, they went home.
42
THERE THEY ARE. They’re living together on Rue de Bretagne in a pretty nice apartment whose main advantage is that it’s on a direct bus route—number 98—to the barracks. Yes, Paul Objat has resumed his duties on Boulevard Mortier, though he had to give an explanation to a committee about his collaboration with the deposed general before they would allow him to get his old job back. But all went well, and he’s now working under new management who provide him with less interesting tasks. Not that he seems to care. His salary has been reduced as a consequence, but he seems blithely unconcerned about that too. He doesn’t say much either, for that matter. Not that he’s ever been chatty, exactly, but he now speaks markedly less than before.
On Friday evening, though, he goes back to the apartment and tells Constance about his day, because he knows this is what couples do when they see each other in the evenings: they tell each other about their day. Constance, who listened to him very attentively to begin with—because, at first sight, counterespionage appears very interesting—now only half listens. Because, when it comes down to it, counterespionage is a lot less interesting than you’d think. As for her own day, Constance does not say anything about it, primarily because she didn’t do anything except hang around in the neighborhood, do some window-shopping in clothes stores, and microwave three frozen meals for dinner. Then they go to bed early, Paul quickly falling asleep and Constance lying on her back for a while, eyes wide open.