by John Brooke
“Oh yes, very independent.”
“Still drives, then?”
“I wouldn’t call it that...I gather his friend Herméné pulls strings to help him keep his permit. I refuse to go with him. But he always seems to arrive.”
“They’re close, Monsieur Dupras and the doctor?”
“I’ve only met him over the phone. But yes,” allows the maid, “he’s always calling to check on Marcel. At least once a day. Seems like a nice man. He’s almost like family, really...I gather they’ve known each other since forever.” She’s already closing the door. Without a mandate, an inspector has no right to enter and this Léonie seems to know it. Musing, “But you never know about people, do you?”
Aliette Nouvelle agrees: you never do. Leaving her card, she asks Léonie to make sure the doctor gets in touch. From corruption, sweetness. A nice idea. Does that old man believe what Ondine believes? And a pute called Flossie Orain: what does she believe? What she needs is a mandate for an in-depth chat with Marcel Cyr. And Ondine Duguay. And them — all of them, but especially her. Flossie. And that chemise: I believe we should have that chemise back out of the ground and in to the best lab money can buy...
Working late as thunder rumbles in the distance. Trying to give it some form, legal integrity, a compelling shape a judge will have to notice. Unless the inspector’s summary report can sway the Instructing Judge, they will likely be proceeding under a murder mandate aimed expressly at Herméné Dupras. If they go for him it means that, legally, her own first thoughts will be considered extraneous, and so all the more difficult to explore.
But there’s something else here and the inspector works to etch it clearly.
There’s lightning cracking over the city now, the wind whipping up, chill gusts whistle in the courtyard outside her office window. A storm coming down from the mountains.
Good. Rain. Rain like hell. Just do it!
She shuts the window, gets back to work.
It’s summer, she’s alone. She feels a need to explore.
2nd Part
Détention provisoire
Four months maximum; the charge is laid;
both sides build their case.
“Man is a demi-god: he always has either one foot or the other in the grave; woman is divine because she can keep both her feet always in the same place, whether in the sky, in the underworld, or on this earth. Man envies her and tells himself lies about his own completeness, and thereby makes himself miserable; because if he is divine, she is not even a demi-goddess — she is a mere nymph and his love for her turns to scorn and hate.”
— Robert Graves,
The White Goddess
4
Speaking of Love
It rains, the air clears, people decide not to kill themselves. Or their spouses or their neighbours or their neighbours’ dogs. Residual drops falling from charming medieval eaves and the leaves of hovering plane trees are like blessings for the clean new morning, lightly touching people’s heads as they venture out: it’s OK, it’s over now, let’s all just get back to business. It’s a Saturday but the city complies, buzzing, working twice as hard, as if secretly ashamed for anything untoward it may have said or done, the whole place acting as if it never happened.
But one person has been killed. It happened. And so Chief Judge of Instruction Gérard Richand has also come in today, in anticipation of clearing out next Friday for his own hard-earned month in the sun.
Because community pressures are too often liable to inform the decisions of a Procureur, and because more visceral pressures can weigh on the actions of a cop, the system has created the Judge of Instruction. Not a judge per se, the kind you meet in a courtroom, the J.of I.’s role is to more or less referee the investigation, keeping it fair and clean for all involved. He (or she; lots now) literally instructs the Police as to their rights and scope while in the process of investigating; he conducts his own interviews and has the means to order his own investigation if he feels the need. Then he reports back to the Procureur as to whether the facts, the suspect, and, indeed, the crime fit the charge, recommending: Yes, it looks like this one did it; or: Maybe, but let’s find out more; or: No case to answer here, the suspect should be released and we should look elsewhere. There are countless nuances, legal, political and systemic within this basic range.
Two gendarmes escort Herménégilde Dupras down to le Palais de Justice for an interview.
The eight Judges allotted to Aliette’s sub-prefecture occupy a musty corner on the third floor of the courthouse, a fortress fashioned in the blocky Second Empire style. Their offices overlook a quad whose geometric pathways are shaded by plane trees and coloured by beds of well-planned flowers. Gérard Richand is a man who appreciates the civilized atmosphere; to him, the landscaping motif reflects the fact that the law is rational but not devoid of personality and he always aims to conduct his affairs accordingly. His office windows are open wide. The new breeze allows both men to relax somewhat — a sense of clarity seems to have returned. Sipping tea with lemon, finishing a plate of biscuits, they’ve worked carefully through the things Herméné does and does not remember relating to the night of August 5th. Monsieur le Juge has offered a cigarette, the prisoner has accepted. They smoke at a measured pace and the discussion turns toward the philosophical.
“Well, why her?” asks Gérard. “Why would she choose that American?”
Herméné watches a ray of sun play on the toe of his shoe as he considers the judge’s query. “I suppose it’s not quite accurate to say she just picked her out of a hat... From what I gather, she found a photo and realized she could do a good job of her. More like a natural choice, if you look at the two women.”
“I mean, why now? The face — why does it still work?”
“It’s the times. When I was a boy, most clients were more than satisfied with the new body, the momentary change of attitude, a bit of unencumbered fun... Now, it’s different. I think it’s access to the special they’re all looking for. I don’t even think it’s really the sex any more...not deep down.”
“Not the sex?” Gérard Richand is dubious.
Herméné Dupras can read it. “...well, just look at poor Manon and her American movie queen.”
“I have. But what’s the attraction?”
“Exactly, monsieur: this pouty, slightly stupid-looking blonde from the American movie factory. Yet she charmed sports heroes, artists and the President of the United States... Better than that: some even say our own magnificent Montand, when he played opposite her. Why? God knows. Maybe it was just one big snowball effect. But she endures, doesn’t she? A star, and people love her. They talk about her vulnerability. I suppose there’s something in that. Personally, I think it’s mostly on account of television — I mean, if you want my opinion.” In fact, explains Herméné, chat-show hosts, journalists out covering wars, and fashion-smart cuties who foretell the weather are also now among the pantheon of goddesses that clients came looking to touch at Mari Morgan’s.
Hearing this, the judge is moved to consider one particular woman who reports on local news stories. Every night she sends her magnetic smile from various points around the city straight into his bedroom. He has himself, maybe a dozen times now, spoken into her outstretched microphone. He can’t say he knows her and probably doesn’t want to; professionally, he resents her presence in the halls of the Palais. It’s numbing, and dangerous, too, in that one can never remember the actual answering; one must watch later on to see what one has said. Once on the screen, however, she becomes something else again. She distracts him from his wife and this bothers him. But he never misses the news... Gérard sighs and puts it out of his mind. “When you were a boy, you say. What do you mean by that? How exactly does a man like you get involved in your kind of business?”
Herméné’s answer to that one is straightforward enough. “I was born into it.”
Incredulous, but still smiling, Gérard folds his arms across his belly. He’s here to list
en.
Herméné was born in a house similar to Mari Morgan’s, in a small town to the south, “in 1922, on St.Valentine’s Day, to be precise,” returning the judge’s smile — he has always been proud of his birthday. Most children born under such circumstances, and there were many, usually stayed until their fourth birthday at the very latest, then were sent to orphanages or relatives; or they went with their mothers to a new, and, everyone hoped, more stable life. But because his mother owned the place, along with Jean, his stepfather, he’d grown up in close and comfortable proximity to sin. “Les Violettes. The place had seen better days by the time I arrived...had been going strong in one form or another for sixty-odd years. Paggiole listed us in his original directory — a remarkable compendium, monsieur, covering almost any town or city one might happen to visit in France and north Africa, and all the major cities of Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and Switzerland; and people could always find us in Le Gervais or Le guide rose after Paggiole was banned from publication. My mother and Jean were doing a good trade on closing day, and, I guess there’s no harm admitting it now, for a few more quiet years after that...”
On April 13, 1945, the maisons closes of Paris were ordered shut in compliance with the newly passed Marthe-Richard law. At the time it seemed like the ultimate victory for the moralizing non side in a political war that had been going on since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The houses in the regions around the country all followed suit, albeit in no great hurry.
“Your mother was a whore?” asks Gérard, not offensively — never offensively — but pointedly, hoping to hit a sore spot.
“I only knew her as la patrone, monsieur. And she was as bourgeois as...well — as you perhaps?” But yes, Maman had been a whore: a smart one, who allowed the right man to fall in love with her. Together they bought the house from another couple who had met and prospered in quite the same fashion a generation before. As was the custom, Madame acted as hostess while Monsieur worked in the background, on the plumbing, for example, or driving to the station to meet a new girl. “But he was a bookkeeper by profession, so he could help with other things...” Such as their taxes, which they paid without error as they cultivated their connections and served the community...or at least part of it. “My mother always went to mass with her head up, monsieur, make no mistake.”
Herméné, however, was the inevitable result of a momentary lapse. It occurred when his mother decided, against all good judgement, to try a “tryer.” Tryers were an obscure class of itinerant men who entered houses such as Les Violettes with the express professional duty of testing and reporting on the skills of recently arrived girls. The tryer was wined and dined as if he were the most honoured guest, then sent along to sample the charms of the new Marie or Pierrette. When he was done and had reported, he was paid and then forgotten until his services were required again.
“Lucky bastards,” mutters the judge.
Not so. Herméné shakes his head. Most men reacted that way when they learned of the tryer’s trade because, on first hearing, it did sound like a great job — perhaps one of the best ever invented. In truth however, the lot of the tryer had more in common with that of the opium eater than the lolling pasha. Most were wandering flesh addicts, consumed by a never-to-be-filled need. This need may have made them useful to the industry, but it left them alone and highly distracted at the end of the work day. Most tryers died alone and empty, in every sense of the word, more often than not the raving victim of advanced venereal disease. Herméné’s father, Gros Paul, as the ladies of the district came to know him, had been one such accursed fellow. “I could not kiss my dying father adieu, monsieur, for fear of catching something...”
But the man, when he’d been around, had taught his son everything there was to know about carnal pleasure; and, despite the ignominious ending, Herméné could always take professional pride in the fact that when Gros Paul had been at the peak of his career, the women with whom he was paired were known to reappear in the drawing room later that evening imbued with a new sense of inspiration (not to say craft) for their trade. Gros Paul’s report, though duly heard and discussed, was always slightly redundant. Madame could tell at a glance she had a winner in the new (often just fifteen or sixteen) wide-eyed Suzette; or that jaded-looking Julianne just in from Brussels knew her business despite the red-rimmed pin-prick eyes born of too much belladonna. Gros Paul did not just test and approve quality, he instilled it.
Herméné’s mother, Jeanne, to the everlasting contempt of her partner and husband Jean, had been curious. This large lady (about as large as Herméné), who’d left the sheets behind to become a diligent and dispassionate manager, had, since her move to management, learned to fend off the desire for the taste of something more exotic, and, let’s be honest, more ultimate than her husband, by subsuming it in the sweet taste of a pastry or two whenever the urge came on. “...But she let all that self-control go by the boards after seeing one too many blissful smiles planted on the faces of her newest charges. She told me: Herménégilde, one afternoon I just said to hell with the gateaux — this Gros Paul is something I should know about.”
“You were a business decision.”
“You are very perceptive, monsieur... That’s exactly what she told me whenever she was angry: Herméné, you were strictly business, and not very smart business at that!” And he leans toward the judge, confiding, “It took me a bit of time to sort that one out.”
Gérard nods...go on, sensing he has tapped a weak spot in the pimp’s thick armour.
Indeed, Madame Jeanne’s recurring harsh words linking her son’s conception with careless business practices, and her love of pastry which always seemed more dear than her love for him, brought on identity problems in early adolescence, the physical marks of which were his obesity and high blood pressure. The child had been wounded and remained so. However, the mother’s boy was also the father’s son. Herméné entered manhood and the trade, first as a videur — a bouncer, with an innate and completely accurate feeling for sexual enjoyment. And that was good for business. When Herméné gained controlling interest of the house that was to become Mari Morgan’s — in 1952, when the tryer’s trade was long since obsolete and the business of running a house could no longer be legally registered as such — one of his first moves was to re-institute his father’s craft to a more or less official standing... “with myself, of course, as the tryer.”
“Of course.”
“I made it a house rule. But the trouble with regulations, monsieur, in my experience at least, is that people interpret them in different ways. They get too emotional. They don’t know how to separate business from other things.”
Gérard suggests, “This Manon Larivière broke the rules in deciding to leave, so you put a knife in her.”
“Mais non! You misunderstand.” Herméné’s point is that, professionally speaking, it was simply prudent to carry on the tradition of Gros Paul. It meant that when he presented a girl who bore his personal stamp of approval the buyer would know she had to be special, worth every franc Herméné was going to charge. Knowing everything there was to know about his girls had played a major part in the success of Mari Morgan’s. But it was by no means the easy way to go: women tended to get jealous. Some men, too. “She, Manon, must have displeased someone... Or maybe I did.” Herméné pauses, holding his hands over his eyes, trying again to fathom it, “but I just don’t know who or how or why.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to play her little role any longer.”
“Of course she did. This notion of leaving us, I really believe it was just a sort of hysterical whim brought on by her condition. It would have passed by morning, poor thing...”
“And Marilyn Monroe?”
“She loved it.”
“Why?”
“Because they loved it. The clients. Check my books.” A disclaimer: “...of course they’re not about the business as such. As far as taxes for services go, Mari Morgan’s is an apartment-hotel.�
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“We know all about it.”
“But we have a profit-sharing plan and it’s all there. I can interpret it for you at your pleasure. My Manon was building a solid nest-egg, monsieur. She was at the peak of her career. Look-alikes make money, believe me.”
Gérard has to laugh. “Profit sharing...I like that... Pimps are the original profit sharers.”
“I resent that!” Herméné is on his feet. “I am not a pimp, monsieur! If that’s what you think then you have no idea...” Holding firm till the judge backs away from this squalid assumption.
The two attending cops are waiting outside Monsieur le Juge’s door; and there’s a button fixed to the underside of his desktop he can push if necessary, if he perceives a threat...which will be included in the charge. But acquiescence is the better part of assessment. Gérard Richand rolls his eyes, puffs in a nervous way on his cigarette, and backs off.
Herméné sits and continues: Types, and the fetishes they tingled, were timeless: nuns, pubescent girls, school teachers, housemaids and ballerinas, the kindly nurse and the more violent modern dominatrices clad in steel and leather; or women who looked and acted like executive vice-presidents; all were available upon request. But look-alikes, at first just a hunch on Herméné’s part, were fast becoming the most fun of all. It started quietly, with an Englishwoman, strangely enough, an alcoholic called Sue, who, when lucid, could affect a remarkable resemblance to the then young English queen. “Sue’s Elizabeth... It was just a joke, good for a laugh in the bar sometimes, or, more usually, for the sleepy pleasure of the girls and myself over coffee in the morning. The foreign words didn’t mean much, but we could hear the accent and see the royal mouth pointed so very correctly as she spoke. I overheard an English client wishing out loud one evening in the bar and I thought, why not? When the Englishman returned on his next business trip he was offered his wish — and it worked. The most pleasing thing was that poor Sue was actually happy for a year, with a new sense of purpose and the pet corgi we gave her for a prop. Soon Bardot became a standard...and still is, for men of a certain age. There’s always one girl on staff who can do her with ten minutes notice. I mean, film stars...” A large gesture here, indicating the obvious: they were made to be loved. Schneider, Deneuve, Ardant, Adjani ...or, looking in the opposite direction: Moreau, Signoret, Michèle Morgan and Arletty — because “older men can have powerful dreams too, monsieur, and they are very loyal customers” — they had all performed their magic for the exclusive pleasure of Herméné’s clientele.