“You are not French?”
“I was not French. I was American.”
“What was your occupation?”
“I was a movie actress.”
“And what killed you?”
“A machine accident, caused by a crazed computer. That is the reason why I militate now, against mechanization and data processing.”
“But what do you mean, ‘now’? I thought you were dead!”
“So what? You too, are dead! Didn’t you notice the portrait in black wood, and the holy boxwood that watches over your soul?”
“And what did I die from? What would I die from? I mean, what will I die from?” shouted Simon with growing exasperation.
“Lost at sea,” replied Djinn calmly.
This was too much. Simon made a last, desperate effort to extricate himself from a situation which could be nothing else but a nightmare. He thought he should first relax his overwrought nerves: he had to scream, he had to hit his head against the walls, break something. . . .
In a rage, he dropped the flickering candelabrum to the floor, and he walked with deliberate step toward that overly desirable woman who was mocking him. He grabbed her. Far from resisting him, she wound her arms around him like a blond octopus, with a sensuousness Simon had hardly expected.
Her flesh was too warm and too sweet to belong to a ghost. . . . She was pulling him toward the bed, from which the little boy had fled, wakened no doubt by the commotion. Upon the floor, the spilled candles continued to burn, threatening to set fire to the curtains. . . .
This is the last clear view of the room that Simon had, before he surrendered to ecstasy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When I arrived in France, last year, I met, by chance, a guy my age named Simon Lecoeur, who was known as Boris, I never knew why.
I liked him right away. He was rather good-looking, tall for a Frenchman, and above all he had a wild imagination that made him, at every moment, turn daily life and its simplest events into strange, romantic adventures, like those found in science fiction stories.
But I also thought, almost from the start, that I’d no doubt need a lot of patience, at times, if I were willingly to accept his extravagant fabrications; I should even write: his follies. “I’ll have to like him enormously,” I told myself that first day; “otherwise, very soon, we won’t be able to stand each other.”
We met in a way that was both weird and ordinary, because of an ad read in a daily newspaper. We were both looking for work: some little part-time job that would allow us to buy, without too much effort, if not the necessities, at least little luxuries. He said he was a student, as am I.
A short ad, then, written in telegraphic style, with somewhat unclear abbreviations, was seeking a y.m. or a y.w. to take care of two children, a boy and a girl. It was probably a matter of looking after them at night, picking them up at school, taking them to the zoo, and other things of that sort. We both showed up at the interview. But nobody else came.
The person placing the ad must, in the meantime, have given up the plan, or else, found through another means, what he needed. The fact is that, Simon and I, finding ourselves face to face, each of us believed, at first, that the other was his eventual employer.
When we discovered that this wasn’t the case, and that the person placing the ad had actually stood us up, I was personally rather disappointed. But he, without losing his cool poise for an instant, took pleasure in prolonging his misconception, even starting to speak to me as though I was henceforth to become his boss.
“It wouldn’t bother you,” I asked him then, “to work for a girl?” He answered that, on the contrary, he liked that very much.
He said “liked,” and not “would like,” which meant that he was going to play the game. So, I pretended, in turn, to be myself what he was making me out to be, because it seemed amusing to me, especially because I found him droll and charming.
I even added that these children, that he would watch for me, from now on, were a handful: they belonged to a terrorist organization that blew up nuclear power plants . . . It’s a stupid idea that, I don’t know why, had suddenly occurred to me.
Next, we walked to a café, on the boulevard nearby, where he bought me coffee and a croque-monsieur. I wanted to order a pizza, but he launched right away into new tales about that bistro, in which poisoned foods would supposedly have been served to enemy spies in order to get rid of them.
As the waiter wasn’t very talkative, morose, with a rather sinister look, Simon claimed that he was a Soviet agent, for whom the two kids were in fact working.
We were both in a very happy mood. We whispered in each other’s ear, so the waiter couldn’t hear us, like conspirators or lovers. We were amused by everything. Everything seemed to be happening in a singular atmosphere, privileged, almost supernatural.
The coffee was terrible. But my companion explained, quite seriously, that if I kept drinking my coffee too strong, it would cause me to become blind, on account of the pale green color of my eyes. He took advantage of that, of course, to pay me a few conventional compliments on my “mysterious look” and even on “the unearthly brilliance” of my eyes!
I had to go to the Gare du Nord, to meet my friend Caroline, who was due to arrive on the train from Amsterdam. That wasn’t very far from the place where we were. Simon, who of course wished to accompany me, proposed that we walk there. Rather I should write: “Simon decided we would walk” for his incessant fantasizing, paradoxically, was joined by a rather strong authoritarianism.
So we set out, happily. Simon did his best to invent all kinds of stories, more or less fantastic, concerning the places we were walking through and the people we came across. But he made us take a strange, complicated path, of which he wasn’t sure enough: alleyways more and more deserted, which were, he said, supposed to constitute a shortcut.
We ended up completely lost eventually. I was afraid of being late, and I was finding Simon a great deal less amusing. I was very glad, finally, to be able to jump into a cruising taxicab, whose unexpected presence in that deserted place seemed a godsend to me.
Before leaving my deplorable guide, who was refusing—for extravagant reasons—to climb into that car with me, I nevertheless made a date with him for the next day, under an absurd pretext (intentionally absurd): to resume the visit of that desolate quarter-devoid of any tourist appeal—at exactly the place where we were parting company, that is to say in the middle of a long, straight alleyway, lined with old fences and half tumbling walls, with a ruined pavilion as a landmark.
As I feared that I would not be able to find the place by myself, we decided to meet, for that excursion, in the same café where we had already stopped today. Their beer might be more palatable than their black coffee.
But the taxi driver was getting impatient; he claimed that his vehicle was holding up traffic, which was quite stupid, since there was no traffic at all. Yet, it was getting close to train time, so Simon and I said brief good-byes. At the last moment, he called out a phone number where I could reach him: seven sixty-five, forty-three, twenty-one.
Once settled into the cab, which was old and in even worse shape than the New York City cabs, I noticed that it was also that bright yellow color we are used to at home, but which is very unusual in France. Simon, however, was not surprised.
And still thinking about it some more, I began to wonder how that car had appeared precisely along our way: taxis are not accustomed to cruising such deserted places, practically uninhabited. That would be hard to understand. . . .
I became even more concerned when I realized the driver had placed his rearview mirror, atop the windshield, in such a way that he could easily observe me, instead of watching the street behind us. When I met his eyes, in the small rectangular mirror, he didn’t even look away. He had strong, irregular, asymmetrical features. And I thought he looked sinister.
Disturbed by these dark, deep-set eyes, that remained fixed upon me in the mirror (was he th
en familiar with this maze of alleyways, that he could drive through them this way at a good speed almost without looking at the road?), I asked if the Gare du Nord were still far away. The man then twisted his mouth horribly, in what was perhaps a failed attempt at a smile, and said, in a slow voice:
“Don’t you worry, we’ll be there soon enough.”
That innocuous reply, spoken in a mournful tone (someone prone to panic might even have found it threatening), only increased my concern. Then, I blamed myself for my excessive mistrust, and thought that Simon’s wild imagination was probably contagious.
I had thought I was very close to the station, when we had parted, Simon and I. However, the cab drove on for a long time, through neighborhoods where nothing was familiar, and which looked to me more like distant suburbs.
Then, suddenly, at a turn in the street, we found ourselves in front of the well-known facade of the Gare du Nord. At the edge of the sidewalk, at a place where cabs unload their passengers after a quick U-turn, there was Simon waiting for me.
He opened the door for me politely, and he must have paid the fare himself, because, after I saw him lean briefly into the driver’s open window, the cab sped away, full speed, without waiting for anything else. However, that exchange of words (inaudible) had been extremely short, and I do not recall having seen, between the two men, the slightest gesture in any way related to some transaction.
I was, besides, absolutely flabbergasted by this unexpected reappearance of Simon. He smiled sweetly, looking happy, like a child who has played a good trick. I asked him how he had got there.
“Ah well,” he said to me, “I took a shortcut.”
“You walked?”
“Of course. And I’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes already.”
“But that’s impossible!”
“It may be impossible, but it’s true. You took a very long time to drive that short distance. Now, you have missed your train, and your friend.”
It was unfortunately true. I was almost ten minutes late, and I was going to have a hard time finding Caroline in the crowd. I was supposed to be waiting for her as she got off the train, just at the gate exit from the platform.
“If you want my opinion,” Simon added moreover, “that driver took you the long way around on purpose, just to make it a bigger fare. Since you took so long to get here, I even thought for a moment that you’d never arrive: yellow cabs are always the ones used in kidnappings. It’s a tradition in this country.
“You’ll have to be more suspicious from now on: more than a dozen pretty girls, in just this way, disappear every day in Paris. They’ll spend the remainder of their short lives in the luxurious brothels of Beirut, Macao, or Buenos Aires. Just last month they discovered . . .”
Then suddenly, as though he had in a flash remembered some urgent business, Simon broke off, in the midst of his fabrications and lies, and declared hurriedly:
“Excuse me, I must be gone. I have lingered here too long. Till tomorrow, then, as agreed.”
He had spoken, to remind me of our meeting the next day, in a low and mysterious voice, like one who might have feared the indiscreet ears of possible spies. I answered: “See you tomorrow!” and I saw him watched him hurry away. He was soon lost in the crowd.
I then turned back toward the entrance of the station, and I saw Caroline coming out, walking toward me with her broadest smile. To my great surprise, she was holding by the hand a little blond girl, very pretty, maybe seven or eight years old.
Caroline, whose right hand was encumbered with a suitcase, let go of the little girl’s hand to wave at me cheerfully with her left. And she called out to me, unconcerned about the travelers hurrying in all directions between her and me:
“So, that’s the way you wait for me on the platform! You just stand there, talking with guys, without caring about when my train comes in!”
She ran up to me and kissed me with her usual exuberance. The little girl looked the other way, with the discreet air of a well-bred young lady who hasn’t been introduced yet. I said:
“Yes, I know, I am a bit late. Forgive me. I’ll explain to you . . .”
“There’s nothing to explain: I saw you with that good-looking guy! Here, this is Marie. She’s the daughter of my brother Joseph and of Jeanne. She was entrusted to me in Amsterdam, to bring her back to her parents.”
The child then performed for my benefit, with earnestness, a complicated and ceremonious curtsey, such as young ladies were taught fifty or a hundred years ago. I said: “Hello, Marie!” and Caroline continued her explanations with animation:
“She was spending her vacation at an aunt’s, you know: Jeanne’s sister who married an officer in the Russian Navy. I already told you the story: a man named Boris, who asked for political asylum when his ship made port in The Hague.”
Speaking in the reasonable tone of a grown-up, and in surprisingly sophisticated language for a child her age, little Marie added her own commentary:
“Uncle Boris is not really a political refugee. He’s a Soviet agent, disguised as a dissident, whose mission is to spread discontent and disorder among workers in the nuclear industry.
“And you found that out all by yourself?” I asked her with amusement.
“Yes, I did,” she answered, unperturbed. “I did see that he had his spy number tattooed in blue on his left wrist. He tries to hide it under a leather wristband, which he wears supposedly to strengthen that joint. But that can’t be true, since he does no physical work.”
“Don’t pay any attention to Marie,” Caroline told me. “She’s always inventing absurd stories of science fiction, espionage, or the occult. Children read far too much fantastic literature.”
At that moment, I realized that a man was watching us, a few steps away from us. He stood a little way back, in an angle of the wall, and stared at our little group with abnormal interest. At first, I thought it was Marie who was attracting his rather unwholesome interest.
He might have been about forty, perhaps a little more, and he wore a gray, doublebreasted suit of classic cut (with matching jacket, vest and pants), but it was old, threadbare, shapeless with wear, and his shirt and tie were as beat up as though he had slept in his clothes during some very long train trip. He carried in his hand a small, black leather case, which made me think of a surgeon’s kit, I don’t exactly know why.
Those dark and piercing eyes, deeply set, that face with its heavy, asymmetrical, sharply etched, unpleasant features, that wide mouth twisted into a kind of smirk, all that reminded me brutally of something . . . a memory, however recent, that I could not manage to bring into focus.
Then, suddenly, I remembered: it was the driver of the yellow cab who had brought me to the station. I experienced such a sharp sense of discomfort, almost physical, that I felt myself blushing. I turned my head away from that unpleasant character. But a few seconds later, I glanced at him again.
He had neither moved, nor changed the direction of his stare. But it was rather Caroline, to tell the truth, whom he seemed to be watching. Did I forget to mention that Caroline is a very beautiful girl? Tall, a great body, slender, very blond, with a short haircut and a sweet, slightly androgynous face, one that brings to mind that of the actress Jane Frank, she always attracts the homage, more or less indiscreet, of men of all ages.
I must also confess something else: people claim that there is an extraordinary resemblance between us. We are generally mistaken for two sisters, often even for twins. And it has happened several times that friends of Caroline addressed me, thinking they were speaking to her, which one day triggered a strange adventure. . . .
But Caroline interrupted the course of my thoughts:
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, scrutinizing my face with concern. “Your expression has changed. You look like you’ve just seen something scary.”
Marie, who had guessed the cause of my emotion, explained calmly, in a loud voice:
“The guy who’s been follow
ing us since we got off the train is still here, with his little suitcase full of knives. He’s a (sex) pervert, obviously, I could tell right away.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” whispered Caroline, bending over the child while pretending to smooth the rumpled folds of her dress, “he’s going to hear us.”
“Of course he can hear us,” answered Marie without lowering her voice. “That’s what he’s here for.”
And, suddenly, she stuck out her tongue at the stranger, and at the same time smiled her most angelic smile at him. Caroline burst out laughing, with her customary unconcern, while scolding Marie as a matter of principle, without any conviction. Then she said to me:
“In fact, the child might be right. Besides, I think that character took the same train we were on. It seems to me that I saw him prowling in the corridor, and that I had already spotted him on the departure platform, in Amsterdam.”
Raising my eyes once more toward the suspicious character with the black case, I then witnessed a scene that only served to increase my astonishment. The man was no longer turned toward us; he was now looking at a blind man who walked toward him, feeling the ground with the iron tip of his cane.
He was a tall, blond young man, twenty or twenty-five, wearing an elegant windbreaker made of very fine leather, cream colored, and open over a bright blue pullover. Black goggles hid his eyes. He held in his right hand a white cane with a curved handle. A little boy of about twelve was leading him by the left hand.
For a few seconds, I imagined, against all likelihood, that it was Simon Lecoeur, who was returning disguised as a blind man. Of course, looking at him more carefully, I soon recognized my error: the few points of resemblance that one could find in the general appearance, the dress, or the hairstyle of the two men, were in fact minor.
When the young man with the white cane and his guide got close to the character with the baggy clothes and the physician’s bag, they stopped. But none of them gave any sign whatever. There were no salutations, none of those words or gestures of welcome that might have been expected in such circumstances. They remained there without saying a word, face to face, motionless now.
La Maison de Rendez-Vous and Djinn Page 8