But come you back…
And so I closed the door behind me in order to dissolve slowly in her troubled sleep, in her fading memory. She was absolutely innocent; it was not she who had left me. I had stepped out of her room late one evening, and I recalled how slowly I had walked down those stairs. Only now did the absurdity of this slow motion reveal itself to me—because it had not been a departure, but very nearly a suicide; it had been a jump into the unknown.
For the first time in my life I felt as if I needed her help and support. It occurred to me that she might have heard something about the incident. Had she imagined that now, accused of murder and tormented by regret, I was waiting to learn of my fate and what awaited me—the guillotine, a lifetime of hard labour, or perhaps the return of the golden Buddha with its ecstatic face, and then freedom? Whatever the case, our relationship was nothing more than an illusion. Perhaps I would change, and in several years’ time a remote convict, suffering terribly from malaria, would relate in that wretched criminal jargon the fantastic story of his love for this woman, whose existence would be believed by no one. But if by some miracle I were destined ever to meet her again, I would tell her—as always, half in English, half in French—about my interrogation, my standing accused of murder and my incarceration in prison. And I would add that it had been then, as I sat there, locked within these four walls, that I finally grasped the most important thing of all: that the constant spectre of someone else’s existence, the accusation of murder, the remorse for being theoretically culpable before the shadow of my deceased friend, the prison, the prospect of a slow or instantaneous death—all this was far easier to bear than the memory of my departure from her room late that evening, than the disappearance of the only illusion for which, perhaps, it was truly worth defending myself to the bitter end.
* * *
I knew that over the course of these long days—which seemed to be filled with only my thoughts and memories, and which so monotonously transformed first into dusk and then into night—there, beyond the walls that confined my current existence, tireless work was being done. I concocted dozens of hypotheses, but of course I was unable to imagine even in the remotest, most abstract way possible what it would ultimately be that effected my return to freedom. Indeed I had no way of knowing that Thomas Wilkins was in Paris, much as I had no idea that he existed at all or that it would fall to him to play such a significant role in my fate, which was in turn the result of certain character traits of his. Thomas Wilkins was the owner of a large flower shop in Chicago, and, as he himself said, he loved two things above all else: flowers and women. Those who knew him best, however, were inclined to say that his greatest weakness was in fact for spirits. He had come to Paris on business, installed himself in the Grands Boulevards and soon became a regular in all the bars in the area. He was a stout forty-year-old man with faded eyes, and would usually turn up accompanied by a young lady who would rank among those well known to all the waiters and proprietors of those bars. He was renowned for a certain forgetfulness when under the influence of spirits, and on departing would often leave behind at the bar a box of chocolates, a parcel or even his own hat. These would usually be returned to him the following day.
The search for the golden Buddha had been entrusted to an Inspector Prunier, who, after spending a number of weeks on the case, was unable to uncover not only the whereabouts of the statuette, but even the slightest mention of it. He searched—albeit not without difficulty—the premises of the antiques dealer, who confirmed the sale of the Buddha to Shcherbakov several months previously; his corroboration, however, did nothing to advance matters. He provided Prunier with a detailed description of the statuette, which corresponded exactly with the one I had given to the investigator, and, thus having ascertained that the golden Buddha did indeed exist and was not a figment of my imagination, Prunier once again took to his searches. By the most elaborate and indirect of means he made enquiries with all the buyers of stolen goods, but they yielded no results. The golden statuette of the Buddha seemed to have vanished without trace.
Late one evening, as he was returning home, tired and sleepy, along one of the little streets near Place de l’Opéra, he stopped in front of a bar above which glowed a red neon sign. Muffled music could be heard coming from within. He pushed open the glass door and stepped inside. The place was nearly empty. He sat down on a bar stool opposite the cashier, greeted him—he knew all the staff there—ordered himself a grape juice and spotted to the right of the cashier a small object wrapped in crumpled tissue paper.
I learnt these details from Prunier himself, with whom I later became acquainted after inviting him to lunch at a restaurant. He related to me in vivid detail everything that had happened, the particulars of each interrogation and the trail of evidence that had led the investigation to its logical conclusion. Having had too much to drink, he was utterly candid and admitted to me that he was dissatisfied with his job and his lot, that he was compelled to do this work only because of a lack of sufficient means, and that what interested him more than anything in the world was zoology. When he started talking about this he became uncommonly animated, and it was impossible to stop him. I fancied that if a question on the classification of mammals had come up at the start of our conversation, I would scarcely have managed to find out anything at all about matters that in this instance were more pertinent to me personally, but to which he was little inclined to ascribe any importance. He went into a veritable lyric ecstasy when he began on Australian fauna, of which he possessed a surprising knowledge: he described to me the behaviour of the viper, the temperament of the platypus, the ferociousness of the dingo and the tragic beauty—as he phrased it—of the black swan. He knew the dimensions of the Manchurian tiger, the colours of the ocelot, the extraordinary speed of the hyena—he apparently felt unhindered by the fact that I was manifestly ignorant in this area. After this we met frequently; he was a kind man and carried within him the seed of a distinct zoological poetry, which was imbued, as I once remarked to him, with a sort of elemental pantheism. Luckily, however, that evening in the bar, his thoughts were far from zoology. He looked at the package and asked:
“What have we here?”
“A customer forgot it,” said the cashier. “He only just left, I haven’t had time to see what it is. Something heavy, in any case.”
“Let me see it,” said Prunier.
The cashier handed him the near formless package whose shape was concealed by several layers of paper. Prunier unwrapped the crumpled layers of tissue paper, and his eyes opened wide: there, glittering dimly in the electric light, was the ecstatic golden face of the Buddha peering up at him.
“Ça, par exemple!”‡‡‡ he said.
Wilkins was questioned the following day with the aid of an interpreter—he spoke almost no French. At first he was reluctant to talk to the police, insisting that he was an American citizen, that he had committed no crime, and that he had contacted the American consul, requesting his protection from the tyranny of the French authorities. However, once the matter had been explained to him, he told them what little he could. He had bought the statuette for three hundred francs from the girl with whom he had spent the previous evening. He had been very taken with its unusual lively expression, as he put it, and for that reason he had decided to acquire it, although naturally it was not worth such a sum, as it was made of bronze, with an inset piece of red glass. The girl initially had no intention of selling it and had only agreed to it after he insisted. She was a very lovely blonde, and was called Georgette. Prunier thanked him for his statement and asked at the bar who exactly this woman was who had arrived with Wilkins that evening.
“Gaby,” said the barman.
Half an hour later, Gaby was standing in front of Prunier. She began by declaring that all her documents were in order, that she would say nothing, that she had nothing to say, and that she knew her rights.
“Cut it,” said Prunier. “And don’t waste my time. Where did y
ou get that statuette?”
“It was a gift.”
“Very well. Who gave it to you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, but it is,” he said. “Well?”
“I’m saying nothing.”
“As you wish,” said Prunier. “But I’ll have to detain you for having been complicit in the receipt of stolen goods.”
“You must be joking,” said Gaby. “Who would steal a bronze statuette?”
“A person who can tell the difference between bronze and gold. Well?”
This remark made a peculiarly strong impression on Gaby. Tears welled in her eyes; she couldn’t forgive herself for having given away, practically gratis, such a precious object to this American who had been blind drunk, or at least made himself out to be so, and who also had no idea that it was gold.
“Gugusse told me it was worthless.”
“You may go,” said Prunier. “Just be sure not to go far, I may need you again.”
After this, Gugusse, Gaby’s official pimp, was delivered to that same room where Gaby had been only an hour ago. Prunier threw a sharp glance at him; Gugusse looked as he always did—his voluminous curls, the fruit of the hairdresser’s labours, that sinister shaven face, and the light-brown suit with the grey overcoat.
“Good afternoon, Inspector,” he said.
“Good afternoon, Gugusse,” said Prunier. “How are things?”
“So-so, Inspector.”
“Would you care for a cigarette?”
Such unexpected courtesy from the police inspector rather unnerved Gugusse; he was used to being addressed in quite a different manner, and this change in tenor betokened nothing good.
“You’ve always been a good lad at heart,” said Prunier. “Of course, you’ve had a few run-ins, but then who hasn’t?”
“Quite so, Inspector.”
“There you go. You know, we do all we can not to make any unpleasantness for you: you live as you please, work as you please, and we don’t inhibit you, because we’re convinced of your integrity.”
Prunier stared intently at him. Gugusse avoided his gaze.
“On the other hand, you must understand that since we’re doing you a service, we’re also counting on your loyalty. We know that if we were to require certain information, you’d give it to us. Is that not so?”
“Certainly, Inspector.”
“Where did you get the statuette you gave to Gaby?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Inspector.”
“Alas, you see, it’s impossible to have complete trust in you. A pity. For you must understand, of course, that everything will go well only so long as we believe you. But it wouldn’t be difficult if all of a sudden we wanted to find something on you. There would be questions—and you know what that means—your past would be subjected to scrutiny—you know what that means too—and so on. Do you follow me? And then I’d no longer be able to protect you. I’d say, ‘Gugusse, my hands are tied, because you abused my trust.’ I hope you understand this. Now permit me to add that time is not something I have in abundance. For the last time: where did you get that statuette?”
“I found it in a rubbish bin, Inspector.”
“Fine,” said Prunier, standing up. “I see you’ve grown tired of the quiet life. Well then, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“Amar gave it to me for safekeeping, Inspector.”
“That’s another matter entirely. You know, only recently we were talking about you, and I said to my colleagues, ‘Chaps, I’m always ready to vouch for Gugusse.’ I’m so glad I was right to say so. When did he give it to you?”
“In the early hours of the twelfth of February, Inspector.”
* * *
Having been left alone with my thoughts, I knew nothing of these events at the time. I imagined that my fate would be decided presently, in these very days, and that nothing would depend on me in any way at all. Less than at any other time in my life was everything that lay before me defined by what I was or what I sought to be. I later returned to these thoughts and again established that they were truly insignificant. What was important was that there was a golden statuette with a square base, that the old antiques dealer with his spectacles and yarmulke had provided a detailed description of it to the police inspector, that Thomas Wilkins, the owner of that flower shop in Chicago, had a weakness for spirits and the fairer sex, and a tendency towards forgetfulness when drunk. What was important was the existence of Gaby, and that she worked in the Grands Boulevards. What was also important was that amid this unlikely pattern of drunkenness, flowers, prostituted women’s bodies and semi-literate souteneurs there had appeared this golden incarnation of a great sage, of whose teachings not one of its temporary owners—not Wilkins, not Gaby, not Gugusse—knew the first thing, yet whose physical restitution held the key to my freedom. Besides, what other than the blind, inexorable workings of chance could have connected my fate, my delirium, my wanderings to the clientele of a flower shop in an American metropolis—a clientele whose very existence had enabled Wilkins to make his journey to Paris? What could have linked it to Gaby and Gugusse’s poorly treated syphilis and to the mysterious life of this Hindu artist to whose undeniable, and to some extent seditious, art the golden Buddha owed its existence? Perhaps this unknown master, as he worked on the statuette, had hoped that a hundred or a thousand years thence, having been resurrected and reincarnated dozens and dozens of times over, he would finally attain perfection and come to resemble that great sage of every age and nation—instead of dying, only to awaken as a pariah surrounded by spirits of darkness, having led an ordinary human existence, undistinguished by any particular service. It occurred to me that I had been far from the truth in telling Pavel Alexandrovich that under certain conditions I could become a Buddhist, precisely because my fate in this life interested me too much and I was anxious to regain my freedom.
The great day finally came three weeks later. Once again I was escorted to the investigator’s office. He greeted me—which he had never done before—and said:
“I wasn’t under any obligation to summon you, but I wanted to see you again and I had the time to spare.”
He opened his briefcase—and the next thing I knew, I saw the golden Buddha in his hands.
“Here is your saviour,” he said. “He did, however, prove rather difficult to find.”
He carefully examined the statuette.
“It’s a remarkable object,” he said, “although I’m unable to find in it any resemblance to St Jerome, and I suspect your comparison to have been an exceedingly arbitrary one. Exactly which painting did you have in mind?”
“I’ll admit I’m no connoisseur of paintings,” I said. “I was reminded of an anonymous painting that caught my attention in the Louvre. It was attributed, unless I’m much mistaken, to the school of Signorelli. The painting seemed to be the work of two artists, and it depicts St Jerome in religious ecstasy. He’s holding a stone to his bare chest, and blood is trickling down from under it. His face is raised to the heavens, his eyes are rolled back in a sacred frenzy, the lips on his aged mouth have almost disappeared; floating in the air, above his head, there is a vision of the Crucifixion. I thought it to be the work of two artists because the floating Crucifixion is executed carelessly and unconvincingly in comparison with the powerful expression inscribed in St Jerome’s face by the artist. The statuette struck me primarily because of its expression of ecstasy, which seemed so unexpected on the face of the Buddha, as in every other portrayal that I’ve seen his face expresses an Olympian calm.”
“I hope we shall have the opportunity to discuss this further at some point,” he said. “Tonight you shall sleep in your own bed. Amar has not yet been arrested, but of course it’s only a matter of time.”
“Has the order for my release already been signed?” I asked. “What I mean to say is, may I now speak to you as a free man?”
“Of course.”
&nb
sp; I then told him my impressions of Amar and repeated that I personally doubted Amar’s ability to deliver such a strong and precise blow.
“I’ve seen him,” I said. “He’s physically frail, weakened by illness. You just have to look at the way he walks to be sure of this—he limps.”
“This point struck me as odd, too, to begin with,” he replied. “But I’ve since had the occasion to consider evidence that was naturally unavailable to you.”
“Namely?”
“The results of the post-mortem, for one. And also the dossier on Amar.”
“What did the post-mortem reveal?”
“That the weapon used was no ordinary knife, but one with a triple-edged blade—something like a bayonet. Of the sort used in abattoirs.”
“You mean to say…”
“I mean to say that until he fell ill, Amar worked in an abattoir in Tunis.”
“I see,” I said. “Yes, this is the way it had to be.”
* * *
Recalling this period later, I couldn’t help but observe the pre-eminence of two things: a strange levity and the impression of having witnessed the disappearance of an entire world. This sense of freedom was new and rather alarming, although it seemed as if it could come to a halt at any moment and then again I would vanish from this reality, borne away by a surge of that irrational force that had played such a significant part in my life to date. Yet each time I discovered my fears to be unfounded, or in any case premature.
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