The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘Isn’t it just? His name is Komarovsky. And he’d like to have you for one night.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Koma-rov-sky.’

  Katherine typed in the name.

  ‘Got it. Komarovsky, Tuesday, one night. Usual consultation fee?’

  ‘There’s been an adjustment on the fee, dear.’

  ‘What kind of adjustment?’

  ‘Your fee for one night will be two hundred thousand euros.’

  ‘OK, what’s the joke, Simone?’

  ‘Darling girl, I never joke about money, especially in larger quantities. I asked for advance payment in euros and it arrived not an hour later, wrapped in a very nice Prada bag.’

  ‘Two hundred grand, in cash?’

  ‘I’ve already had the money deposited into your account, less my usual fifteen per cent.’

  ‘So that’s one-seventy thousand euros, at the current rate …’

  ‘Two hundred thirty thousand Swiss, give or take a franc or two. Like I said, dying to meet you.’

  ‘I guess, but who is he?’

  ‘He’s well known to members of the Two Hundred Club, but I’ve never met him. Descended from the Romanovs, or something. Absolutely filthy with money. His bills are paid in cash and his entourage spoils the staff with pricey gifts. You know the type, dear.’

  ‘I love the type. Room number for Mr Wonderfully Rich in Gstaad?’

  ‘The Royal Suite of course.’

  ‘Even more wonderful. You’re sure he’s not a freak?’

  ‘Dear, anyone who resides in the Royal Suite of the Grand and tosses money about like chocolates may be as freakish as they wish. I’m sure it’s nothing you can’t handle. Oh, by the way, you remember that Italian footballer who got rough with you last month? Well, it’s in all the gossip rags. His actress wife has left him. Apparently she didn’t believe his story regarding his swollen testicles. What did you do to him?’

  ‘Taser gun. Never leave home without it.’

  ‘That’s my girl. Do let me know how it goes. I want to hear every little detail about Monsieur Komarovsky. I’ll SMS his contact. Ciao, dear.’

  Katherine finished her cigarette as if it was something to be savoured. A number popped up in the window of her cellphone. ‘Well, whoop dee fucking doo.’ She punched in the number. It picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good afternoon. Is that Monsieur Komarovsky?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  One of those affected voices. Male tone, female persuasion.

  ‘I’m referred by the Two Hundred Club.’

  ‘Ah, the Two Hundred Club, don’t you know?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Katherine Taylor, from Lausanne.’

  ‘Katherine Taylor, from Lausanne. How nice. Monsieur Komarovsky is anxious to speak with you. Would you mind holding a moment?’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  Katherine took the moment to check her reflection in the window. She pulled at her fringe, thinking no more than a trim. A paregoric voice came on the line.

  ‘Good day, Miss Taylor. How good of you to telephone.’

  ‘Good day, Monsieur Komarovsky. I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

  ‘Not at all, I was awaiting your call.’

  ‘I understand you’re coming to Lausanne tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, and it is my fervent wish to see you, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Then it is my pleasure to tell you your wish has been granted, monsieur.’

  ‘I am so very pleased. I regret I will not be free until evening. Business matters, you understand.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, monsieur.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The harder the man works, monsieur, the more deserving he is of pleasure.’

  ‘An excellent philosophy, Miss Taylor. One to which I shall aspire.’

  ‘Would you care to meet for an aperitif, say eight, LP’s Bar at the Palace? I’ll reserve a table by the fireplace.’

  ‘Excellent. Then perhaps the night will carry us where it may.’

  She could see him in her mind. Over the hill, dissipated, but rich enough to make a convent girl swallow.

  ‘Your wish is my command, monsieur.’

  ‘That makes two wishes you have granted me already, how kind.’

  ‘Monsieur, I was wondering …’

  ‘I am a connoisseur of beauty, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are wondering how I came to know of your presence in Lausanne?’

  ‘Yeah … yes, I was.’

  ‘As you may have surmised, I am someone acquainted with the wealthy and powerful of the world. Many of whom are members of the Two Hundred Club, in fact. You were presented to me as a creature of exquisite beauty, Miss Taylor. Something precious to be admired by those with the means to offer you their immeasurable appreciation.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I contacted Madame Badeaux and she was kind enough to send me your dossier. May I say, the descriptions are true, you are a woman of exquisite beauty.’

  ‘And for one night, she will all be yours.’

  ‘Until then, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Until then, monsieur.’

  Rochat felt a jab of pain running down his crooked leg to his twisted foot as he shuffled through the train station in Vevey. It was like that on days he went to see the doctors. They always poked needles in his skin and measured his leg with clamps. They twisted his crooked foot till it hurt and wrote prescriptions for vitamins and said things like, ‘Your leg and foot are looking much better, Marc.’

  He shuffled up the ramp to platform number four just in time to catch the slow train to Lausanne. He sat by the window and looked for perch swimming in the rocky shallows of Lac Léman. He counted forty-seven fish before the train climbed from the shore and rolled through the terraced vineyards of bare, gnarled vines. Thin columns of smoke said les vignerons were pruning vines and burning cuttings. He counted ten columns of smoke rising from the hills. Then came the pretty steeple of the old church in Lutry and the houses at the outskirts of Lausanne. Then the train slowed and made fooshing sounds as it pulled into Gare Simplon. It stopped at platform number seven just as the big hands of all station clocks jumped to twelve and the little hands pointed to four.

  ‘Very good, right on time. My compliments to the engineer.’

  Rochat closed the buttons of his long black overcoat and shuffled off the train. He stopped at the bottom of the steps. A man from beforetimes was waiting on the platform. He was tall and wearing the same black overcoat, and had a red scarf around his neck.

  ‘Hello, Papa.’

  ‘From the neck up you look like me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Rochat opened the colouring book he had carried across the forty-sixth parallel of planet Earth and removed the photo of his mother and father on the Plains of Abraham above the St Lawrence River.

  ‘Maman gave me this.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Scene of the crime. You really do have her eyes, don’t you?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘That’s good, that’s very good.’

  His father took him by the hand and led him through the station to a black car waiting outside. A man named Anton drove them out of Lausanne and over some hills to a single-lane road along a high stone wall. There was a stone gate and a long drive over crunching gravel to a big stone house with lots of towers and windows.

  ‘What’s this place, Papa?’

  ‘Vufflens. It’s not much but we call it home.’

  ‘Is it a castle?’

  ‘Yes, Marc, it’s a castle.’

  ‘Are there dragons?’

  ‘Every castle has a dragon, Marc. And we’ve got a beauty.’

  A short man, wearing striped trousers and a dark coat with funny tails, waited for them at the door. He bowed as they entered. Rochat imagined the man looked like a penguin. The man in the penguin coat coughed q
uietly.

  ‘You are expected in the day parlour, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Bernard. Marc, say hello to Bernard, he’s the butler.’

  ‘Bonjour, Bernard.’

  ‘Bonjour, Master Rochat.’

  ‘What’s a butler, Papa?’

  ‘Good question. Bernard, what’s a butler?’

  ‘I endeavour each day to answer the question myself, sir.’

  ‘I don’t understand what that means, Papa.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.’

  Rochat followed his father through a long corridor. Two doors opened to an oak-panelled room with a fireplace big enough to walk into, if there hadn’t been a big fire in it already. An old woman in a black dress sat in a rocking chair near the fire. She sat with a book on her lap and read with the help of the magnifying glass she held in her wrinkled hand. Her hair was white and tied in a bun. Rochat’s father stopped at the door, rubbed Rochat’s head.

  ‘Marc, I want you to go in there and slay that old dragon. Be brave, she’s got false teeth.’

  Rochat felt himself pushed ahead, heard the doors close behind him. He held his breath. The old woman looked up from her book.

  ‘Ha, it is our bastard child from Quebec! How amusing for the family. How amusing for my son’s wife and children. Come here, boy!’

  Rochat slowly shuffled over dark red carpets of squiggles and squares. He stood before the old woman.

  ‘Listen to me, boy. Your mother is dead and you are in our care. You will be placed in a special school at Mon Repos where you will live with children like yourself. I warn you it is very expensive. And I do not like wasting my money, not even one franc. I expect to hear only good reports of your behaviour. Are you listening to me, boy?’

  ‘Oui, Grandmaman.’

  ‘“Grandmaman”? Did I give you permission to address me in such an intimate manner?’

  ‘Non.’

  ‘Indeed not. For the present, you will address me as Madame Rochat.’

  ‘Oui, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘Now, if you are very good and work very hard in school you will visit me two weekends per month. Alternate weekends you will spend with your father at his house in Cossonay when he is not being visited by his ghastly wife. A Bavarian countess, no less. God knows what he was thinking marrying her. Thankfully she spends most of her time in Monte Carlo with the children. Spiteful brats, destined for a life of debauchery. Stop fidgeting, boy, pay attention.’

  Rochat stood very still.

  ‘In time, you shall be given suitable employment and become a responsible member of the canton. Our name is respected in this canton, you are privileged to carry it. You understand me, boy?’

  ‘Oui, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘I am informed you are a simpleton. This is true?’

  ‘I don’t read very well, and I’m not good with numbers.’

  ‘And your French is abysmal.’

  ‘Oui, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘Come closer, boy. I wish to examine your face.’

  Rochat edged close enough to see the brown spots on the old woman’s face. She lifted the magnifying glass and held it to her face. Her filmy blue eye looked like a wiggly bug.

  ‘Yes, you have the forehead and nose, the chin is strong and your hair is the black mop of your father when he was a boy. How old are you?’

  ‘J’ai dix ans, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘Ten years! Then stand up straight!’

  ‘This is as straight as I am, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘Then you are something of a dwarf.’

  ‘Oui, madame.’

  ‘Now, you may be a simpleton and something of a dwarf, but that will be no excuse for tardiness. You will be punctual in all things. If you understand then nod. I cannot bear to hear you speak French.’

  Rochat nodded.

  ‘Good. I shall now tell you something of grave importance. Noble blood does not lie. Do you understand what I am telling you?’

  Rochat moved his head from side to side.

  ‘Of course you don’t. I shall present you with a test. Nod, if you are ready. I said, nod. Good. Did your father tell you I was an old dragon?’

  Rochat froze.

  ‘Come, boy! Spit it out, yes or no?’

  ‘Yes, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘And did he tell you I have false teeth?’

  ‘Yes, Madame Rochat.’

  ‘He did, did he?’

  ‘Oui, madame … I mean, yes.’

  The old woman leaned close to Rochat’s face. ‘Would you like me to take them out and show them to you?’

  Rochat blinked …

  … found himself back at Gare Simplon.

  The sun had fallen behind the hills and the slow train from Vevey was gone. The TGV from Paris was at the platform now and people were rushing by him and bumping him with suitcases. Rochat searched for his father, his grandmother, Bernard the butler. He scratched his head, looked at the clock above the platform. The big hand was now on the ten, the little hand on five. He looked at the clocks above all the platforms, they were all the same.

  ‘Perhaps you’re back in nowtimes, Rochat.’

  He continued to stand, watching people pass, seeing their long shadows on the concrete. He followed the shadows down the ramp to the tunnels running under the platforms and was surrounded by even more people rushing by and bumping into him. Rochat kept his eyes on the ground, watching their shadows whip by his boots.

  Music.

  Rochat saw a black man playing a saxophone just outside the tobacco shop. The man’s knit cap was upside down on the floor next to his tapping toe, instead of on his head where it should be. Rochat watched the shadow of the man’s tapping toe, then raised his eyes and watched the black man fill his bristled cheeks with air and blow into the saxophone to make sounds. The sounds felt sad. Rochat watched the way the people all rushed by, the way they didn’t notice the saxophoneman, the way he didn’t seem to care. The music stopped.

  ‘Hey, little dude.’

  Rochat looked at the saxophone man.

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘You’re supposed to put money in the hat.’

  ‘Papa always did when he saw people like you playing music in the train station.’

  ‘Then what you waiting for?’

  ‘Why doesn’t anyone else put money in the hat?’

  ‘Because they don’t see me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They only see what they want to see.’

  ‘Why do I want to see you?’

  ‘Because you’re like me, you’re cool.’

  Rochat looked down at his long black overcoat.

  ‘Non, I’m warm. This was my father’s coat, it’s wool.’

  ‘No, little dude, I’m telling you, you see things … they don’t.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Them, man, the locals.’

  Rochat looked both ways in the tunnel. People whipping by in a blur.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘You and me, we’re different from all of them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I told you, we see things, they don’t. That’s why the ones like us have to take care of each other. Like dropping some coins in the hat.’

  Rochat opened his coin purse, pulled out three five-franc coins, dropped the coins in the upside-down cap.

  ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Would you tell me something, monsieur?’

  ‘For fifteen francs, I’ll write you a book.’

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘And the time?’

  The saxophoneman looked at the clock above the rushing-by heads.

  ‘Five thirty.’

  ‘So I’m in nowtimes again.’

  ‘Been doing some back and forth have you?’

  ‘Oui. It’s happening more and more.’

  ‘Be not afraid, little d
ude.’

  ‘Non?’

  ‘No, because wherever you go, there you are.’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘Merci. Au revoir, monsieur.’

  ‘Want me to play something for the road?’

  ‘Which road?’

  ‘How about the one you’re walking on?’

  ‘What was it you were playing just now?’

  ‘“Les anges dans nos campagnes”.’

  ‘I know that song. It’s a very old Christmas carol, about angels singing in the fields. But you made it sound different.’

  ‘Slowed it down, made it bluesy for nowtimes.’

  ‘Does that mean sad?’

  ‘Ain’t nothing sadder than an angel in nowtimes.’

  ‘Have you ever seen an angel, monsieur?’

  ‘All the time, little dude, all the time.’

  The saxophoneman put the reed to his lips, blew the saddest sounds. Rochat watched him a moment, then he shuffled away and up the ramp to the main hall, checking all the clocks and wristwatches along the way to make sure the saxophoneman wasn’t another imagination and it really was five thirty. And he studied the dates of the newspapers at the press kiosk near the big swinging doors of the waiting room, to make sure it truly was Monday, December thirteens.

  ‘Dear me, Rochat. Sometimes your imaginations are so very confusing, and all this going back and forth to beforetimes. You must concentrate, Maman told you you must concentrate. And now you’re le guet de la cathédrale de Lausanne, you have your duties.’

  He shuffled through the swinging doors and waited amid a crowd of Lausannois at Avenue de la Gare for the cartoonman in the traffic lamp to jump from red to green and say it was time to cross the road. He looked at the faces of the Lausannois, but they didn’t look at him. He wondered if it was because they couldn’t see him, just as they couldn’t see the saxophoneman. The cartoonman in the lamp jumped to green. Rochat looked down at the pavement and followed all the shadows across the road, at the same time trying to figure how much time he had to take the funicular down the hill to Ouchy and do things in his flat before he’d go back up the hill to his dinner at Café du Grütli, the way he always did when he returned from the doctors in Vevey.

  ‘Must be punctual in all things, Rochat.’

  Across the road he hurried down the ramp to the funicular station. The two-car train was just leaving for Ouchy, but would be back in seven minutes on its way to Flon and Rochat would watch it go by, then it’d come back seven minutes later to take him home.