Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  There was plenty of food left, looking expensive, appetising, aphrodisiac. Not even Lucciani, who never stopped eating, would stretch his hand out to that. Kojak might…

  The big drawing-room had been stripped for action: the kind of metaphor Kojak would use. Empire decorations and furniture. In old mother Delestang’s day that awful colour called ‘gris Trianon’, he had been told. Brought back by Maresq to white and gold, and flashes of bright colour – the silk cushion, there, was peacock blue. A very nice room, for card parties, music parties, tea parties. Lucie will play us some Chopin. No, no, let’s have Offenbach. To make more space, the piano had been wheeled through the folding doors into the library next door.

  One man Maryvonne told after – had been getting his shoe on, and found himself standing on someone’s earring that had been knocked off a table in the hustle.

  The Police Judiciaire, a lugubrious party, gathered in the drawing room. Orthez, whose digestion was of the strongest, poured himself a glass of wine. It was time to go when Lucciani started looking at the food.

  "I say – crawfish tails!"

  "Come on," said Richard briefly. Even his features were looking sunken. Anything to get away from this scene of post-coital gloom.

  The old peasant woman would have a lot of cleaning up, next day; was all anybody said in the car. But that would have been the case in any event. The Police Judiciaire had wiped its boots politely before entering, had broken no furniture, upset no glasses, had not wiped its fingers on the curtains, or even dropped ash upon the floor.

  THIRTY THREE

  NO DISCHARGE IN THE WAR

  Vera was awake, and reading. The tiny one was asleep, but would shortly wake, and demand food. No, she was not tired, or sleepy. She slept, still, during the day; huge self-indulgent siestas.

  "Nonsense," he said. "You need the sleep; you haven’t yet got your full strength back."

  "Yes I have," she said; "I want to start living and going out, and working too."

  "Well, we’ll be having some fine weather now. And days off, again. This nonsense is as good as cleared up. Our end anyhow; the legal end isn’t; won’t ever be, quite likely."

  "I’m glad to hear that; you’re looking awfully tired."

  "Yes; well, more depressed than tired. And wound up too tight to sleep. Hideous evening: no, I’m not going to tell you about it. It wasn’t at all interesting. Just squalid. Hungry?"

  "No, not for me. I’d get fat as an old cow again, and I don’t want that."

  Castang made cocoa, buttered bread, found peanut butter (an acquired taste, neither French nor Czech, but now a great standby).

  He enjoyed this simple meal greatly. Funny, after being nauseated by the crawfish tails. There’d been fresh asparagus too, which they could no longer afford more than once in the season – treat for Vera’s birthday: she was of course a Bull. All that delicious stuff, and it turned your gut over.

  "Are we completely crackers? I mean, everything we do is dotty. And so medieval." Castang, mouth full.

  "I know, yes. I’m reading where someone says, I’m reading philosophy at the university, and an old man says approvingly Good, that’s a noble subject, and a bystander thinks laughing what a very out-of-date attitude; nobody now thinks ‘noble’ a word to use at all – let alone about philosophy. Well, it Is a noble subject, even if no one thinks so but us."

  "Or marriage. Does anybody but us still believe in fidelity? In total, unquestioning, utter trust, the one in the other. You pretend sometimes you think I’ve my hand up all sorts of unlikely skirts, because I’m a cop. But you don’t really think that."

  "No. And no, we’re not behind the times. We’re in front of them. Always have been; always will be. Means, of course, we’ll never have any money. Or be thought of but as dull, worthy, square people, and sniggered at. Never be a success."

  "Right. Richard was here when you were in the clinic. A bit pissed – never seen him like that. Said what are you doing in this stinking job – why don’t you fuck off out of it? Can’t, of course. Wife, baby. Crippled wife, tiny baby. Awful drag. And without them, I’d just be another cynical cop, and crooked on that account."

  "You are not crooked. And neither is Richard."

  "Oh, yes he is, and me. We are bent because the government bends us. It is crooked: they all are. A marxist intellectual has described it in unreadable jargon. Everything they say and do is meaningless, deliberately: no cause and effect, no responsibilities can be ascribed or attributed. Nothing to catch hold of. You can’t revolt against it or even criticise it. A huge jellyfish, of which I am part. All that crap about 1984 – we’re all brainwashed now. Have been for a generation. The young see through it, but even as they do, in their plastic years they are caught, anaesthetised and deadened by it."

  "You’ve changed your mind then? What about the promotion? Being a commissaire somewhere totally insignificant, but we could have a house, and a garden. I’m ready, you know, to take it if you will."

  "No. I’ll hold on, as long as Richard does. Anyhow. No, it’s not just schools for Lydia, or provincial boredom for you, or whatever. This city – it’s where I belong. My boots – I’ll stay in them."

  Boots…moving up and down again. No discharge in the war.

  No. Staying in the same place. Going backwards, often as not. Handing people over to justice – God, the Assize Court itself hasn’t a clue how to judge things now. Looks for a hint to the government. Doesn’t get any. In the name of executive power not interfering with the judiciary, what a joke.

  "The city’s finished too, you know," said Vera abruptly. "It’s all irreversible now. No amount of little trees or pedestrian precincts can save it."

  "You certainly won’t be popular, girl, talking like that. Heretics don’t get burned any more, or put in camps. They’re just disregarded."

  "Oh yes, I know. Silly woman. Hysteria, something wrong with her womb. Doesn’t believe in Growth or the Gross National Product. Cassandra was as well a very tiresome girl and a great bore, and came to a bad end. But even a city this size; I’m not talking about Los Angeles. Can’t you feel the asphyxiation? Double the number of green spaces. Double the number of cops. Where, how, and who pays? It’s too fragile, too rigid, and too complex. And too flabby to resist the smallest infection."

  "You mean – if Electricité de France sneezes, the whole town catches cold."

  "I think it would be simpler still. If you were an anarchist and you had a bomb, where would you put it? In a power station?"

  "No. In the sewers."

  "The days are gone when James Bond and Batman could save us from the diabolic plot. The destruction is in us. We aren’t just biting our own tails now – we are devouring ourselves."

  "So if it’s crumbling, and the crumble accelerates daily, what will be left?"

  "You, and me, and the tiny one in a bundle."

  "Not six just men in the whole city of Sodom – in an ark? Where will the ark float to?"

  "You’re laughing at me. I’ll tell you when the time comes."

  "No, I’m not. Not America of course, and not a comet. The comet would be full of technicians… Perhaps just high ground. After all."

  "Perhaps."

  "Leave it to the women," muttered Castang.

  "No. A woman is nothing without a man. Go to sleep. You have to work, tomorrow."

  "Oh yes. And how."

  He had a confused memory of waking for a moment before falling asleep again. A lamp over which Vera had thrown a dressing-gown, so as not to jar his eyes. The baby making grunting noises, doing hard physical labour. Vera singing, very softly.

  That child would grow up understanding Schubert, anyhow.

  THIRTY FOUR

  A BRIGHT CLEAR DAY IN EARLY SUMMER

  The local paper did not have much to say, but what it said was to the point, for once.

  ‘Inspectors of the PJ yesterday effected the arrest of two individuals as a result of the continuing inquiries into the assassination of Etie
nne Marcel, concerning which the authorities have been stubbornly silent. Commissaire Richard was not last night available for comment. It was given to understand, however, that further arrests were likely to follow and despite the guarded language used it seems clear that the PJ is at last confident that this tangled affair, the motives of which contain still baffling elements, will at last shortly be concluded.

  ‘The two men concerned were named as…’

  Richard sat in his office with a face of disgusted disbelief, like the Pope being told that all the cardinals were in KGB pay. To one side sat Maryvonne, studious, head bowed over a dictation pad, stenographing. On the ‘sellette’ or stool to repentance where the ‘alleged’ get sat was a person Castang had difficulty in recognising. An elderly version, for they are intent and reliant upon looking youthful and at forty it’s tough sledding, of what Vera called Overfed-young-men in Check Waistcoats.

  It is a common type. Their suits, and their shirts, are always half a size too small. Their collars too tight and the points too long: there is too much flowing tie, and far too many cufflinks. They are bacon-heavy with good living: there is always a touch of jowl, thirty once passed, on the shiny skin of the overshaved jaw. They are assiduous buyers of toiletries and perfumeries. Their hair is shaggy, and youthfully disordered. On the beach, above the little bikini-slip, there is more than a suggestion of sow around that hairy navel. They are all weighed down with credit cards and girls’ telephone numbers. Their cars are rather too expensive for their jobs. They can be divided, as the man in Oliver Twist said, between mealy-boy and beef-faced-boy. They are wise in the ways of this world, and they know of no other.

  Maresq was not ordinarily in the least like this. Years of sophisticated and genuine expertise, of self-assurance and certainly, till very recently, of self-command, for old mother Delestang had had a gimlet eye, had put restraint upon him. No grossness or vulgarity had been apparent. Shrewd, concentrated, brainy – if narrow – he had been ruthless in pursuit of his objectives, had reached them, been thrown off his poise, possibly, by the discovery he wanted more. Jurists, and psychiatrists, and even journalists would rest an elbow on the table and stay with pencil poised while he talked and talked and talked.

  But the shock of last night had cracked the plaster, and a night in a detention cell had flaked it: it had looked good, but been thin, a bit cheap. And now Richard scratching, peeling, levering. The flakes were getting bigger. The alloy underneath was pinchbeck stuff. Wrong metaphor (Castang was doing nothing, sitting; listening to the interrogation). A building. No good stone. Brick, and poor quality: once exposed to this sulphuric-acid-laden PJ air it crumbles, at the corners first; faster… And under the plaster, a smell, smell of damp and decay. The name of this smell is prevarication.

  "Castang, there’s no need for you to sit listening to these elucubrations. Your face betrays you: yes, they’re cheap. You go and see Madame Jouve, and then all this voluble stuff, which is giving Maryvonne here the cramps, will be seen in its true proportions. See to this chap, Maryvonne, will you? I’m beginning to feel enervated by him." Summer is i’cumin in, said Richard’s face, and yes, there were two rosebuds in a glass on his table. We’ve Found Rosebud.

  Magali, in a thin pants-suit of a lavender shade that would have suited her ordinarily but today looked awful, looked awful too: her complexion was like candlegrease.

  "I was expecting you. Come in."

  "The house is empty?"

  "The children are at school. Bertrand’s gone to work. Waiting for the axe to fall."

  "And yourself?"

  "Come to gloat?"

  "Come to verify."

  "You saw me naked last night. Want me to drop my pants for you?" An odd echo of Clothilde. Whom everyone had forgotten.

  "You needn’t, you know, put on any further acts."

  "My mother tried to kill herself."

  "It’s understandable. Thierry is her favourite: she admits as much."

  "And I’m my favourite, huh?" She caught sight of herself in a glass. "Jesus. Mourning becomes Electra."

  "Attitudinising."

  "That little redhead bitch of yours – looking at me, knowingly."

  "She’s young, inexperienced, and was much embarrassed. Seeing a lot of naked people was no thrill to us. There was no record made, no pictures taken. But we found – and confiscated – a camera."

  "Ah."

  "He had it hidden. Since reading spy stories they all know how. He wanted to make quite sure, you see."

  He felt sorry for her: she was so limp. But he had come to wring her dry.

  "When did you first know?"

  "Telephone calls."

  "You could recognise the voice – now?"

  "The voice – a sort of whisper. One couldn’t – can’t – be sure."

  He’d been careful, the pig.

  "Saying – that Thierry was involved? In the killing of your father? Or could be made to look it?" It is that word parricide. Like incest. A crime within a family triples the horror.

  "That Thierry had killed Didier…"

  "Ah." So that was it…

  "That it could be proved."

  "Did you ask him what his proofs were?"

  "Didier always had a shower after work. It was a habit of his. Everyone knew about it. Something Thierry used that would give him away."

  "Did you warn Thierry – or try to?"

  "Bertrand said," she whispered, "that that would make me guilty too. I didn’t dare."

  "When did Bertrand know?"

  "I thought, only after I told him. Last night – he’d known all along. He’s been afraid to tell me." Oh yes, clever. Sly. And nasty-minded.

  "And then you were invited to the party?"

  "What else could I do?" in a whisper.

  "You knew before about those parties, didn’t you?"

  "Salome had been – with Didier." She was fidgeting with a cigarette between her hands. "How – how much of this is going to come out?" It broke limply into two halves, the sound only just audible. Castang was content to take it as symbolic.

  It was essential to find Thierry, now. And as essential to find the proof of which Magali spoke. If it still existed. And if Thierry is still alive.

  Simon Tappertit… And the power of a strong character over a weak one. Vera, and Richard, had both been right.

  The easy life. Indulged by both the women, defended and even protected against the angry, helpless bitterness and disappointment of the father.

  Textbook cases. With hindsight so easy to perceive. Castang had half seen: laziness and stupidity had prevented him seeing the rest.

  He started making excuses for himself. He’d been thinking, worrying about Vera; he was in no way to blame. Richard had only half seen too; Richard whose experience was so much vaster.

  Look, Richard never saw Thierry: you did. And you’re behaving like Thierry.

  They can always find excuses: they cannot perceive their own feebleness without self-pity. The feebleness is fundamental, the vulnerability cumulative, self destructive. They seek the protection of persons with strong character, whom they resent, and attack. They invent systems and dramas to cover up. They are great ones for ‘sensitivity’, reproaching others for their ‘lack’. Likewise generosity.

  They feel pain, humiliation; are given to bullying, and to violence. They are ‘likeable’ but not trustworthy. Incapable of action, they are despised: they take refuge in interminable argument and protest, chicane, perpetual wails and appeals for understanding.

  They are always beaten in battle, and negotiation, because they always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. They never have any money: they are plucked, of course. They grow fatalistic about it, while never ceasing to resent it. A leitmotiv: ‘I am always generous and trust people, and they take advantage.’

  They are to be pitied: they always arrange to come out losers. Everything rankles with them: they mutter, they nurse grudges – and forget them again – till – when?

&nbs
p; They have often much charm, which they use to catch people whom they then despise for being caught. They themselves are easily caught by people of charm… The naivete, of expecting charm to substitute for reliability.

  Rogues they always will be. Slip easily into petty crime. Will they commit major crimes? If a suitable – and easy – occasion presents itself, quite, likely. Selfishness and vanity are the springs of all criminal behaviour.

  Crashing platitude: right mate; that’s why there’s a lot of crime about. Their cowardice will put a brake on them, and their conceit of themselves.

  King Charles the First’s royalty, his noble air, his great physical courage – took everyone in for a long time.

  A poor excuse, Monsieur Castang, a poor excuse.

  Thérèse was as tart as usual, though more taciturn. She said she supposed she couldn’t stop him going upstairs and snuffling about. He asked politely after Noelle. Mending, she admitted. She went every afternoon.

  She knows, of course: they both know.

  In Thierry’s room there was nothing interesting. Well, he had never supposed there would be. A pleasant, comfortable room up there ‘sous les toits’ for sitting and dreaming. Books about astrology and occultism – that of course was what he went to the library for, how he had come to meet the Bouvet. He’d had a pathetic faith in becoming an expert on lamas in Tibet, monks on Mount Athos, Chinese sages. Myths of course, and nordic runes. The I Ching: to be sure. A dreamy romanticism: in far-off places there will be wonderful things. One must undergo purification, first. Maresq, with his tales of the West Coast and Big Sur and Carmel, of tea ceremonies in Japanese gardens, of sailing in the Caribbean, of the Search for Power – oh yes, an attractive guru. Have a look my boy, roping in girls is dead easy. They come crowding. Sex is a way towards domination. Sailing in the Caribbean…!