Nada

by Jean-Patrick Manchette

  It was five past noon. D’Arcy was late. At that moment the young man came in. He struck the shoulder of the beige raincoat with the palm of his hand.

  “Ciao.”

  “Hi.”

  “I have an appointment at two and I haven’t eaten. Is your car far away?”

  “Just over the way,” said Épaulard as he settled up.

  They crossed the street. There was already a ticket under the Cadillac’s windshield wiper. Épaulard tossed it into the gutter. They got into the mud-spattered white car.

  “Have you been back in France long?” asked D’Arcy.

  “Three weeks.”

  “Have you seen the guys?”

  “Nobody.”

  “What are you up to just now?”

  As he was speaking, D’Arcy had opened the glove compartment and was rooting in it.

  “It’s in the door cubby,” said Épaulard.

  D’Arcy reached down and brought out a slim silver flask and drank directly from it. He had a red face. He was sweating. Same old boozer, thought Épaulard. When D’Arcy had finished drinking, the fifty-year-old put the flask away. Engraved on it was a bird devouring a snake and a legend in ornate lettering: Salud y pesetas y tiempo para gustarlos.

  “You’ve been in Mexico,” observed D’Arcy.

  “I’ve been pretty much all over. Algeria, Guinea, Mexico.”

  “And Cuba.”

  “Yes, Cuba.”

  “They kicked you out,” said D’Arcy.

  Épaulard nodded.

  “And what are you doing now?” D’Arcy asked again.

  “You’re beginning to piss me off,” said Épaulard. “Just what is it you want?”

  “Some comrades and I,” said D’Arcy, “are in need of an expert.”

  “Expert in what? I’m an expert in lots of things.”

  “These comrades and me,” said D’Arcy, “we are going to snatch the U.S. Ambassador to France.”

  Épaulard got out of the car and slammed the door violently. He went back across the street. D’Arcy ran after him. A nasty cold drizzle was beginning.

  “Don’t be a fool,” said the alcoholic. “I haven’t finished explaining.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more. Fuck off!”

  Épaulard went back into the wine shop and ordered another Sancerre. D’Arcy hovered unhappily in the doorway.

  “Okay then, go screw yourself,” he said at last, and went off.

  3

  “WHICH is why,” concluded Treuffais, “we can say with Schopenhauer that ‘the solipsist is a madman imprisoned in an impregnable citadel.’ Does anyone have a question?”

  Nobody did. The bell rang. With a gesture, Treuffais sought vainly to quiet the hubbub that immediately engulfed the classroom.

  “Next time,” he said, raising his voice, “we’ll examine contemporary rationalism and its variants. I need a volunteer for a presentation on Gabriel Marcel.”

  Two hands went up.

  “I wish it wasn’t always the same ones,” said Treuffais sarcastically. “Mister Ducatel, tell me, are you perhaps very busy this weekend?”

  “Yeah,” replied the student in a mischievous way. “I’m going hunting.”

  “Hunting to hounds, I imagine,” ironized Treuffais.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All the same, you’ll prepare the presentation on Gabriel Marcel. For Monday. Everyone may leave the room very quietly.”

  The horde of brats left the room very noisily. Treuffais snapped his briefcase shut, listening to the fading footfalls of their expensive clodhoppers. He left Saint-Ange Academy by a side door. At that moment Ducatel’s Ford Mustang passed, revving and spraying Treuffais’s pants with muddy water. Ducatel screeched to a halt and got halfway out of his car.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” he offered. But he could not conceal his mirth.

  “You stupid shit!” said Treuffais.

  “Watch your language,” replied Ducatel venomously.

  But Treuffais had turned his back on him and was getting into his Citroën 2CV across the street. The young philosophy teacher drove quickly out of Bagneux, reached Porte d’Orléans and took the outer boulevards westward. He reckoned he was at risk of losing his job. Ducatel would complain to his daddy that he had been insulted. The daddy in question would then pass this on to the director, Monsieur Lamour, who incidentally had a face like a road accident.

  “You might as well be called Mister Bouillon” said Treuffais to his gearshift. “And give your name to your institution: Mister Bouillon of Cours Bouillon.”

  The traffic light turned green.

  “Screw it all!” added Treuffais.

  A car horn beeped behind him. Treuffais leant out of his open window.

  “French Schweinehunde,” he shouted. “We focked you in 1940 and we will fock you again!”

  An office worker in a leather jacket on a moped sprang from his bike and dashed toward the 2CV. Nervously, Treuffais apprehensively pulled his window shut. The moped rider pounded on the door’s metal paneling with his fist. He resembled Raymond Bussières.

  “Get out, asshole!” he shouted.

  Treuffais unlocked a switchblade and opened the car door. He pointed the knife at the aggressor.

  “Gonna kill you, man!” he said in would-be Hollywood black English. “Use your guts for suspenders!”

  The office worker got the general drift, leapt backwards, stumbled over his Solex and fell flat on his face. Treuffais started up, laughing, went through the light on orange and sped on his own down Boulevard Lefebvre.

  “Sono schizo,” he said. “And polyglot! Primoque in limine Pyrrhus exultat.”

  He found a parking spot on Rue Olivier-de-Serres, a few steps from his place. In the elevator he heard the phone ringing inside the apartment. He hurried to get in and answer it. It was D’Arcy on the line.

  “What about your expert?” asked Treuffais.

  “He won’t do it,” said D’Arcy.

  “We’ll do without him.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “We’ll manage. Excuse me, the doorbell is ringing.”

  “Okay, I’m hanging up. I’ll call you back.”

  “Don’t bother. We’ll see each other tonight.”

  “Right. Till tonight then.”

  “Tonight.”

  Treuffais hung up and went to the door.

  A short guy, but broad, with wavy hair, about twenty-five, which was Treuffais’s own age, was holding out a vile glossy brochure.

  “We are coming around as we do every year,” the man said. “From the Federation of Breton Scholarship Medical Students.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” suggested Treuffais, pushing him away with the palm of his hand.

  “Hey, hold on, buddy!”

  “I’m not your buddy!” cried Treuffais with ferocity and angrily shoved the Breton scholarship recipient again. The man batted at him with his literature. Treuffais delivered a left to the kidney. The hawker dropped his publications. A kick from Treuffais scattered them on the stairs.

  “You bastard!” shouted the student. “I have to make a living.”

  “A big mistake!” exclaimed Treuffais as he used both hands to push the Breton backwards down the stairwell, where he ended up on his back howling in clearly genuine and acute pain.

  Treuffais went back into his apartment and slammed the door. The telephone rang again. The young man hurriedly opened a bottle of Kronenbourg and lit a cigarette before picking up.

  “Marcel Treuffais speaking.”

  “Buenaventura Diaz.”

  “Awake already?”

  “That idiot D’Arcy called me. So, just like that, his crappy expert backed out.”

  “Yeah, just like that. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t agree,” replied Buenaventura Diaz. “The guy is in the picture now. We have to see what he has for balls.”

  “Oh, just drop it.”

  “I’ll go and see him tonight. You with me?”
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  “What are you going to tell him?

  “To keep his trap shut.”

  “Let it go,” counseled Treuffais again.

  “No.”

  “Suit yourself. What about the meeting?”

  “I might be late.”

  “All right.”

  “Anything else?” asked the Catalan.

  “Nothing. You?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay. Bye then.”

  “Bye.”

  Treuffais hung up and started opening his mail. Marie-Paule Schmoulu and Nicaise Hourgnon are delighted to inform you that . . . Well, holy shit, the poor kid has finally got shacked up. Next envelope. Prices slashed at Radieuse and Co.! Treuffais opened the brochure and contemplated “stylish country-style bookshelves” before tossing the advertising into the wastebasket and going to open a second beer. He was shaking with rage. He went and sat down in the large armchair. Horsehair poked through holes in the leather worn out by his father’s backside. The carpet in front of the chair was threadbare, worn out by his father’s feet. Treuffais unsealed another envelope bearing a thirty-centime stamp. Annual dinner of the Fifteenth Arrondissement Libertarian Association (Errico Malatesta Group). A discussion led by Comrade Parvulus would follow the meal: “Libertarians and the Jewish-Arab Conflict: A Few Remarks Based on Plain Common Sense.” Bullshit. Treuffais screwed the announcement up into a ball and flung it to the far end of the room. The last item was a postcard. Recto: Rice Cultivation near Abidjan. Verso: “May 12. Dear Old Pal: Still won’t be home this year. Probably won’t be home ever. You should join me. I’ve caught the clap from the daughter of a chief. I’d be happy to pass it on to you whenever you like. Fuck you royally. Popaul.”* Treuffais stuck the card in a drawer of the family sideboard, finished his beer and went for lunch at the local café.

  *Popaul, a nickname for Paul, is also a nickname for a penis.

  4

  AFTER lunch, Meyer had an argument with his wife, which ended as usual: Annie tried to strangle him.

  “Stop, for God’s sake!” cried Meyer, but she was crushing his pharynx. So he pawed around on the table, which was within his reach, and managed to grab a glass bottle of Évian, three-quarters full. He landed a light blow with it on the young woman’s head by way of a warning shot. Annie was in full crisis mode. She did not relax her grip. She sank her nails into Meyer’s neck. He sighed in desperation, then let fly. At the third blow Annie let go, clapped her hands to her head and rolled onto the floor screaming.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” said Meyer. “Come on.”

  Annie was wailing. He covered his ears.

  “Shit!” he roared.

  He rushed into the bathroom and threw water on his face. Raising his head, he saw in the little mirror that Annie had left deep scratches on both sides of his neck. They were bleeding. He splashed alcohol on the wounds, and his eyes teared up. The blood continued to ooze. Quick. Meyer took his white shirt off, but too late: the collar was stained. He looked at himself in the glass once more. He saw a twenty-three-year-old guy, blond and doughy, with little eyes the color of shucked oysters. He had gooseflesh. He powdered his neck to absorb the blood. In the next room, he could hear Annie banging her head against the wall. He went to join her.

  “Come on, baby, stop it. I love you.”

  “Just die, slimeball,” Annie replied. “You dirty Jew,” she added, “I hate you. I’m going to go to Belleville and get myself fucked by Africans. I’m going to get screwed,” she insisted quite violently.

  She rubbed her head and started weeping with pain. Her hair was beautiful and fine. Meyer wanted to shoot himself or just go to work—it was hard to say which. He looked at his watch. Two fifteen. Just time enough to avoid being late.

  Annie suddenly stopped crying and got to her feet.

  “I made a nice drawing last night.”

  “Would you show it to me?”

  “No. I hate you. You’re a piece of shit.”

  “Please, sweetheart,” said Meyer.

  “All right, all right,” said Annie in an uncouth way. “I’ll go and get it for you.”

  While she was in the other room, Meyer wiped his neck a final time and put on a clean shirt and a black clip-on bow tie. He slipped into a threadbare velvet jacket. He would not don his waiter’s white jacket until he got to the brasserie.

  Annie came back with a large watercolor depicting a fort in the desert. Little men wearing outsize pith helmets seemed to be trying to mount an attack on the fortress, but without success: Annie had painted a mass of brown blobs raining down on them.

  “Those are turds of Africans,” the young woman explained. “That is my house.”

  “Very pretty,” said Meyer.

  Annie looked at the alarm clock.

  “Darling,” she exclaimed, “you have to leave right away. You’re going to be late.”

  “Yes,” said Meyer, “I’m off.”

  “I’m sorry about before. I’ll be better tonight. I’ll take some Gardenal.”

  “Don’t take too much,” counseled Meyer.

  At the door he turned around.

  “I’ll be late this evening. I have my meeting.”

  “You’ll tell me about it.”

  “I will,” he lied.

  “I’m sorry I lost my temper. Don’t know what came over me. It’s nerves.”

  “It doesn’t matter at all. Forgive me for hitting you with the bottle.”

  “I love you.”

  “Same here,” said Meyer and left.

  He arrived at his job five minutes late. The brasserie, near Montparnasse Station, was bustling. Meyer put on his waiter’s coat and got straight to work.

  “Coming through!”

  “Cut yourself shaving again?” the cashier, Mademoiselle Labeuve, asked him ironically.

  “No,” replied Meyer. “This time it’s eczema. When I get eczema, I can’t help it, I have to scratch.”

  Mademoiselle Labeuve contemplated Meyer with disgust. He kept on working. He thought about the night’s meeting, and this helped him relax somewhat.

  5

  AFTER his telephone call to Treuffais, Buenaventura had gone back to sleep for a while. He was dragged from his slumber at three in the afternoon by his alarm clock. He sat up in bed in his underwear, his mouth furry. He had smoked, drunk and played poker until five in the morning. He rubbed his eyes with his fists. He stripped, went into the bathroom, washed his feet, underarms and crotch, brushed his teeth, and shaved. Then he slipped on corduroy pants and a turtleneck sweater darned at the elbows. Back in the bedroom he tidied up a little, made the bed, took dirty glasses to the sink, and stood empty liter wine bottles against the wall near the door. A plastic cup held a remnant of Margnat. Buenaventura tossed the wine down, shuddered horribly and almost threw up. He opened his shutters and looked out over Rue de Buci. Long-haired students were chatting on canopied café terraces. Buenaventura closed the windows once more, then gathered up wine-stained playing cards scattered on a little folding table and tossed them into a wastebasket. Must remember to buy a dozen certified decks. He sat down on his bed and did his accounts in a notebook. That night he had won 573 francs. Good. A streak of bad luck seemed to be ending. Buenaventura needed an overcoat or at least a peacoat. The weather was turning cold.

  He put the money away, dividing it among the various mended pockets of his pants and those of his leather coat, which was musty and full of holes. He put on unwashed socks and rubber boots, got into his coat, wound a black scarf around his neck and covered his head with a black felt hat made before the Second World War in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. With his thin pale face and bushy muttonchops he looked like a brigand in a neorealist version of Carmen.

  Leaving the Longuevache Hotel, he walked to D’Arcy’s place, a tiny studio kitchenette in a building with an unrestored façade in Rue Rollin near Place de la Contrescarpe. He knocked.

  “Yeah?” shouted the alcoholic. “It’s not locked!”

  �
��It’s me,” Buenaventura announced prudently, pushing the door open.

  On one of his good days, D’Arcy might have been crouched behind the door, hammer in hand and ready to strike. Buenaventura entered, relieved to see the drunkard at the back of the room, stretched out on his couch with a bottle of Mogana on his belly.

  The floor was barely visible beneath a thick layer of crushed food scraps and cigarette butts. In the kitchen area Buenaventura spotted coffee simmering in a saucepan. He poured himself a glass, swatted an ant on the rim of a sugar bowl, and made for the telephone.

  “I was dreaming I was getting a blow job,” said D’Arcy distractedly.

  Buenaventura did not respond. He thumbed through an address book by the phone and found someone named Épaulard. D’Arcy was staring at the ceiling.

  “I must write to my mother,” he said, “and ask her to send money. You couldn’t lend me a few shekels, could you?”

  Buenaventura chuckled and emptied his glass.

  “Thanks for the coffee. See you tonight.”

  “You’re taking off?” asked D’Arcy in surprise.

  But the Catalan was already gone, setting off on foot in a northeasterly direction.

  On Boulevard Saint-Michel he was stopped by a man in a blue coat.

  “Police. Your papers.”

  The man was showing his cop ID. Buenaventura would gladly have punched him in the face, but a group of sixty armed and helmeted CRS riot police was stationed not far away near the fountain.* The Catalan produced his alien resident card.

  “Profession?”

  “Musician.”

  “It says ‘student’ here,” said the cop, pointing with a fat finger at the relevant entry.

  “The card is from a while ago. I was a student at that time.”

  “Better get it updated.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The cop returned the card to Buenaventura.

  “All right then.”

  The Catalan went on his way, still on foot; the days were long gone when you could ride for free on the bus by washing off the stamp on used tickets. Walking briskly, Buenaventura soon reached Rue Rouget-de-Lisle near the Tuileries. He entered the building where Épaulard lived and consulted the list of tenants posted on the window of the concierge’s door. He climbed two flights of stairs. A door bore a new copper plaque that read André Épaulard—Legal Counsel. The door had a peephole. Buenaventura blocked it with a finger and rang the bell. He heard movement inside.