‘Did you say his name was Salif?’ I asked. ‘The guy you were hiding in that deathtrap of a hotel?’
‘Right. Why?’ His voice was hoarse and groggy.
‘Is he the one still alive? Or is it one of the others? Which of them called Patrick on the night of the fire?’
I heard Arnaud grunt, and I realized I’d guessed right.
‘What did Patrick really tell the police?’ I went on. ‘How could he know that the fire had been deliberately set? The place must have been engulfed in flames by the time he got there.’ I pictured Patrick riding in a cab and approaching the hotel, with flames shooting up against the night sky. It was the only logical explanation. Someone who was there when the fire started must have told Patrick what had happened.
‘Why are you asking about this now?’ said Arnaud.
‘Are you still hiding him?’
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
‘As I told you, my first priority is to protect these people,’ he said at last.
I sank down onto the sidewalk. A train was backing out of the yard. A container was being unloaded. I heard the sound of steel slamming against steel.
‘I’m not here in Paris to do fact-checking,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’m looking for Patrick. We don’t know what’s happened to him. He checked out of the hotel on Tuesday two weeks ago, and no one has heard from him since.’
‘What? He’s disappeared?’ Arnaud’s voice rose to a falsetto. He sounded scared.
‘So maybe you know where he is?’ I said.
‘How would I know that? I haven’t seen him since the fire.’
‘I need to meet Salif,’ I said. ‘Or whoever it is you’re hiding.’
Silence for a few seconds.
‘I can’t talk about this on the phone,’ Arnaud then said. He gave me the address of a Métro station. ‘Be there in two hours, near the stairs outside.’
Then he ended the conversation.
It was only a hundred metres to the address on my map. I decided I might as well stick to what I’d planned.
A road led behind a wall concealing an old industrial area from view. I saw a row of buildings made of brick and concrete, workshops, garages, and warehouses, along with some wrecked vehicles. I didn’t see any people working there. The buildings were all labelled with letters and numbers, and I found my way to E3. It was a warehouse nearly a hundred metres long. I went over to a double wooden door and knocked. There was no doorbell. No sign of life.
I walked around the building. A garbage can had been overturned, and some animal had scattered the contents across the asphalt. At the corner of the warehouse, a red truck was parked with two trailers and the words MPL Express painted on the side. According to a small sign on the back doors, MPL stood for Marseille-Paris-Le Havre. I continued on around the building and at the very end I saw a door standing open. Two men were outside, having a smoke. I got out my map, pretending to be lost, and went over to them. One of the men swiftly shoved the door closed. The other had a dog on a leash, a powerful-looking animal built like a compact bulldozer.
‘Excuse me, but I think I’m lost,’ I said. ‘What is this place?’
The man muttered something in French. The dog moved towards me, straining at the leash. I took a step back. Don’t run, I thought to myself. Or that dog will think I’m his dinner.
‘I’m looking for the market,’ I said. ‘But I must have gone the wrong way.’
The dog growled, glaring at me with its eyes running, its jaws open wide. Suddenly I didn’t know what I was doing there. One building more or less wouldn’t make any difference. These men were not about to tell me anything. Nor was the dog or the building.
‘I’m sorry. I’m just an American tourist,’ I said, and headed at a modest pace for the road that led out of the property. When I turned the corner, and the bulldozer dog was out of sight, I started running. I didn’t stop until I saw a petite woman wearing a black headscarf shambling across the street with bags of food in both hands.
‘Salif was like their leader,’ said Arnaud Rachid in a low voice, glancing over his shoulder as the escalator slowly carried us downwards. ‘It was his idea for them to escape.’
‘And he was the only one to survive?’
Arnaud nodded.
‘I’d given him a cell phone. He climbed out onto the roof. That was where he called Patrick Cornwall. He broke his leg when he jumped down onto the building next door.’
We reached the underground and continued through a gloomy shopping mall with grey hallways and low ceilings. I tried to ignore the fact that we were heading for the Métro. Huddled behind a pillar I saw three people leaning close to each other. I caught a faint mumbling, saw goods changing hands.
‘Nice place,’ I said, nodding at the transaction taking place in the shadows.
‘Les Halles has been a marketplace since the Middle Ages,’ said Arnaud. ‘Around here you can buy anything you want. Grass, heroin, passports …’
I took in a deep breath as we passed through the Métro ticket barriers, noticing again the scorched smell, the gusts of warm air.
‘So this is where you can get a fake passport if you need one?’ I said, just to get my mind off the enclosed space.
‘It’s not so easy to make a counterfeit passport any more.’ Arnaud headed for another tunnel. ‘But there are tens of thousands of genuine passports in circulation, maybe hundreds of thousands. It’s always possible to find somebody who is similar in appearance.’
‘Stolen passports?’
‘Some of them. But some people sell their own passport. Then they report it stolen and get a new one.’
‘Which they also sell?’ I said. ‘Sounds like a great business.’
‘Migrants who are smuggled into the country often have their passports confiscated by the same people who brought them here. Then the passports are sold. Ten or twenty immigrants can be brought here in various ways, but all on the same passport.’
Only after we’d stepped inside a subway car and the doors closed, with the warning signals sounding over the loudspeakers and the train lurching forward, did he tell me where we were going.
‘We’ll change at Gare de l’Est,’ he said, pointing at the Métro map posted above the window. Graffiti flickered past. Tags and slogans painted on the tunnel wall. ‘Then we’ll take line five to Bobigny.’
He looked at me.
‘I don’t know what you think you’ll get out of this. Patrick hadn’t seen Salif since we found him a new hiding place. He doesn’t know anything.’
I didn’t reply, since I had no idea what to expect. I just knew I had to meet him. Patrick had run out in the middle of the night to save this man. Maybe he could save me in return. Something like that.
After changing trains, the track climbed above ground, and it was easier for me to breathe. When we pulled into a station with the absurd name of Stalingrad, I couldn’t help laughing. No doubt the tension was taking a toll on me.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Arnaud, looking insulted. He’d been in the midst of telling me how the European economy would collapse without immigration.
‘Sorry,’ I said, pointing out of the window at the sign showing the station’s name. ‘It’s just that I didn’t think Stalingrad existed any more. I thought Stalin had been obliterated from the face of the earth.’
‘It was probably named to commemorate the battle of Stalingrad,’ said Arnaud. ‘It would seem odd if they changed it.’ He fell silent and looked at me with interest. ‘Is that where you’re from?’
‘From Stalingrad? Is that what you mean? No, not at all.’
‘Your name, Sarkanova. It sounds Russian.’
‘Good Lord. Why is everybody always so obsessed with where people come from?’
The warning signal sounded. Had Patrick said something about me? If he had, would it matter?
‘I’m from Czechoslovakia,’ I said. ‘But don’t ask me what it was like growing up under a Marxist-Lenin
ist regime. I was only six when we left Prague.’
I saw a glint appear in Arnaud’s eyes.
‘But that speaks for itself,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I said curtly. ‘There was nothing heroic about fleeing. Mama married a man who was twenty years older in order to escape to the west. We drove in a car across the border. Mama told me to keep quiet. I didn’t open my mouth for several years after that. I was an obedient child.’
I looked at him. ‘What about you?’
‘Algeria,’ he said. ‘My paternal grandfather was recruited into the French army. They wanted soldiers from north Africa to be the first to enter the villages.’
‘Sarah said that you were French.’
‘Sarah thinks you can become French just because from a legal standpoint, you’re considered French.’ He grimaced and then studied me for several seconds in silence.
‘Does your father still live there?’
‘Where?’
‘In Czechoslovakia.’
‘Czechoslovakia doesn’t exist any more,’ I said, turning to look at his reflection in the windowpane. Buildings were rushing past over his face. Blocky grey structures, suburban houses. ‘You react with aggression anytime someone gets close to you,’ said a school psychologist that I was once forced to see. ‘Were you mistreated when you were young?’ I had laughed in her face. ‘By the communists, you mean? What do you think they did? Filthy Leninist things? Is that what you mean?’
When we emerged from the Métro, the clouds had dispersed and the sky was mostly blue. I practically had to step over a beggar, a young girl clothed all in black and with her head covered. A dog was asleep in her lap.
‘Welcome to la banlieue,’ said Arnaud. A cluster of dirty yellow high-rises towered before us. I could hear the sound of heavy traffic from the nearby highway.
‘Was it here they burned the cars?’ I asked.
‘It started in Clichy-sous-Bois,’ said Arnaud, heading for the closest high-rise. ‘But then it quickly spread to all of Seine-Saint-Denis and on to other cities in France. In a single night they destroyed 150 cars in Bobigny alone, by torching them or throwing fire bombs.’
He paused to look up at the gloomy facade.
‘Anybody can make a torch or a bomb,’ he said. ‘All that’s needed is sufficient anger.’
The balconies were bare, but satellite dishes were visible in a few windows. All the curtains were drawn on the lower floors. ‘Here, at least, he’s safe,’ said Arnaud, pulling open the door. The lock was broken. The elevator wasn’t working.
‘It’s nine floors up.’
I took the steps two at a time.
No one answered when we rang the bell. Arnaud unlocked the door and led the way inside.
The hallway was painted beige. Nail holes and patches on the wall spoke of people moving out and taking with them pictures and anything else that would have given the place a homely feeling. A few pieces of junk mail lay scattered on the floor. A blazer hung from the hat rack. That was all. A blue light flickered from a room further along the corridor. I could hear a TV, the sound of a soccer match.
Arnaud motioned for me to wait while he went in. After several minutes he reappeared, waving to say I should join him.
The man called Salif was reclining on a bed in front of a TV, fully dressed. One leg was in a plaster cast. His jeans had been cut open to make room for it. Both hands were bandaged. French teams were playing a match on TV. Salif looked at me without saying a word, then turned to Arnaud. His French had a different melody to it. The words were softer and seemed to be spoken more forward in the mouth. He rubbed his bandaged hands together.
‘He wants to know if you’re going to help him,’ said Arnaud. ‘He says that Patrick promised to help him. He wants to know if you’re going to take him to America.’
I leaned against the wall. Aside from the bed and a small table, there was no furniture in the room. The blinds were closed.
‘Have you explained why I’m here?’
Arnaud sat down at the foot of the bed, running his hand through his hair. ‘I told him that you’re one of Patrick’s colleagues. That’s all.’
‘Tell him that I need to know everything about Patrick’s work. Tell him that Patrick has disappeared. Ask him whether Patrick was in contact with the people who threatened Salif and his friends.’
Arnaud raised his hands in a deprecating gesture. Salif kept his eyes on the TV. Arnaud picked up the remote and pushed the mute button. Then he translated what I’d said. Salif sat up straight and stared at me. I attempted a smile, but the man’s gaze made my heart race. In his eyes I saw only fear.
‘He says that Patrick Cornwall promised to help him. He says you have to take him to America.’
Arnaud leaned forward to put his hand on Salif’s shoulder. Salif said something, then repeated the same words four or five times. And even though I had a hard time understanding his French, I knew what Arnaud was going to say before he translated.
‘He says that otherwise he’s a dead man.’
I took a few steps closer and crouched down, looking Salif in the eye. He was younger than I’d expected, in his early twenties. Twenty-five at most.
‘Salif,’ I said. ‘I know that you’ve been through terrible experiences, but I really need your help.’
Arnaud translated.
‘I know that Patrick Cornwall helped you, and now I’m asking you to help me. I don’t know where he is, and I’m afraid something has happened to him.’
Salif’s gaze wavered.
‘I know that he interviewed you. I think that may be why he has disappeared. Please try to think. Is there somewhere he might have gone?’
Salif looked at Arnaud and began speaking very quickly.
‘The others ran down the stairs,’ Arnaud translated. ‘I shouted to them not to go down there, into the flames. The fire was roaring. They were screaming. I couldn’t stop them.’ Salif was staring up at the ceiling.
‘You survived,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault they died. You told Patrick that the fire had been deliberately set, right? How did you know that?’
‘I shouted to them not to go down there. I shouted but they just kept running. They ran right into the fire.’
I changed my position and sat down on the floor. In utter silence a red-clad player kicked a corner shot. The ball ricocheted out of bounds. I turned to Arnaud.
‘Is there anything to eat here?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ said Arnaud. He took a baguette and a cola out of his bag and handed them to Salif, who opened the bottle. I rummaged through my own bag and found a chocolate cookie, which I set on the bed.
‘Ask him to tell me what he told Patrick.’
Salif took a big bite of bread. The baguette wasn’t very fresh, because the crust was soggy. After Salif had eaten half of the sandwich, he began talking. Arnaud translated, speaking faster and faster as Salif got going.
‘Have you ever heard of Salif Keita, the great singer with the golden voice? I told the American to buy one of his records. He’s albino, so he was disowned by his people, even though he’s a descendant of Sundiata Keita, the founder of my country. He’s back in Bamako now and has built a fine recording studio there. He’s a rich man. I was named Salif after him. I’m going to be a businessman. I’m good at maths, just like Checkna. He has a maths brain. Sambala didn’t do well in school. All he can think of is football. Checkna was no good at football.’
Salif’s expression darkened and his eyes went blank.
‘They’re the ones who died in the fire,’ said Arnaud in a low voice. ‘All three were from Mali, from the same village.’
‘Not everyone is able to leave. There’s not enough money. I was the only one of my family this time. They collected money to pay for my trip.’
Salif had started talking again, with a mechanical tone to his voice, as if he’d told this story many times before.
‘The elders in the village also helped to collect money
, mostly for Sambala, because his family is poorer. It’s best to go to France. Everyone knows that. Senegal isn’t so good. There you can get work picking cotton. But I want to be a businessman. My father went to the Ivory Coast, but it’s not good there any more. They throw out Muslims.’
Salif fell silent and ate the rest of his sandwich. Arnaud took over.
‘Mali is one of the countries that doesn’t directly intervene against smuggling people,’ he said. ‘Why should they? During colonial times, the country belonged to France. They’ve been sending their sons here for decades, and in the past they were welcome. There are villages that have been able to build clinics and schools, install electricity, and dig wells to provide fresh water for the whole village — all because of the money that has been sent home from France.’
Salif interrupted Arnaud’s brief lecture, gesticulating and raising his voice.
‘I’ve failed them,’ he said, and Arnaud translated. ‘When we escaped and went to the mosque, the imam helped us to call home. We had to warn our families. They had threatened us and our younger siblings, saying they would kill everyone. Mama said that I should go back and work. Others had gone away and later returned home to build houses for their parents. But many never came home. After a few years people stop talking about them. They’re considered quitters who have forgotten their families.’ Salif rubbed his hands over his head, which had been shaved. I wondered whether he’d had hair before the fire.
‘I’m a dead man,’ he whimpered.
‘He means that his relatives consider him dead,’ Arnaud explained. ‘No one must know that he’s alive. If he’s dead, nobody will come looking for him. Then maybe his family will be safe.’
‘Does he know who they are?’ I asked. ‘Did he talk about this with Patrick?’
‘You can’t expect him to know,’ said Arnaud. ‘You need to understand what he’s been through. The man is in shock.’
‘Ask him, please,’ I pleaded. ‘Patrick’s life could be in danger too.’
Salif kept on rubbing his head, but his voice sounded less mechanical. I was getting used to his peculiar accent. It sounded as if he was punching the words out of the sentences and blowing them out, like bubbles.
The Forgotten Dead Page 15