by Michel Bussi
“Of course! The first years are fundamental. And even the time before birth, if you look at theories around psychogenealogy and transgenerational trauma. A person’s values, tastes, their personality . . . all of those things are shaped by the first years of existence. But looking at it purely from the point of view of our capacity to retain direct memories of events . . . there’s nothing. It’s a stunning paradox, isn’t it? Our life is guided by events—acts of violence or of love—of which we have no real proof. Like a black box that we will never be able to access.”
“But the memories are still stored in that inaccessible black box?”
“Well, yes. It’s quite a simple mechanism, really. Until the acquisition of language, thought depends on images, and therefore so does memory. From a psychoanalytical viewpoint, that means that memories cannot be stored in the unconscious, nor in the conscious, nor even in the preconscious.”
The captain widened her eyes to signify that she had no idea what he was talking about. The psychologist leaned forward and continued to speak patiently:
“In other words, in a young child who seems to have forgotten everything, traces do still remain. We call this the sensory memory, or the sensorimotor stage of development. It occurs through the diffuse memory of emotions, impressions, and sensations. The most classic example is of the child who was circumcised when he was three months old and who, at the age of ten, remains terribly afraid of hospitals—their corridors, the colors, the odors, the noises—without having any real idea why, or any memory of having been in one before. Like the ghost of a memory.”
Captain Augresse was taking an increasing amount of pleasure in this conversation, and not only because of the glint that sparkled in the psychologist’s hazel eyes each time he mentioned a new theory. She felt like an overenthusiastic student, as if she were travelling towards an unknown continent, a virgin territory filled with natives aged zero to four, so many destinies to be modeled by their parents—in their image, but without their flaws. The dream of every mother.
“I have a question, Mr. Dragonman,” she said. “It’s probably stupid, but . . . What is the best thing for a teacher to do in the event of trauma? Should they help the child to forget or to verbalize the situation, talk about the trauma, so that the memory doesn’t remain trapped somewhere in the child’s brain?”
Vasily’s reply was unequivocal:
“Any psychologist would tell you the same thing, Captain: denying trauma, as a form of protection, does not solve anything. To live with trauma, you have to confront it, verbalize it, accept it. That’s the concept of psychological resilience which Boris Cyrulnik made famous.”
The captain liked to provoke. “Well it’s a bit stupid, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“I keep thinking about that film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The story about the company that offers to erase painful memories. It’s a seductive idea, don’t you think? Rather than brooding over lost love, just wipe it from your brain.”
“That’s science fiction, Captain.”
“For adults, I agree, it is science fiction . . . But according to what you’ve just told me, with a young child it is perfectly possible. For a grown-up whose memory is already fixed, I understand that it’s impossible to suppress a trauma completely. We have no choice but to extract it, like a tumor. But for a child under four, it’s different, because all of his conscious memories are going to vanish anyway. Maybe in that case it’s better not to talk about the trauma, to let the memories evaporate, or blur, until they don’t seem real. Even if the child retains a vague memory of trauma, he won’t be able to tell it apart from a violent image from a book or on TV. A sort of containment theory, if you like. A bit like burying radioactive waste.”
The psychologist looked amused. “Go on.”
“All right, imagine a child of one or two who’s survived a genocide, like those Cambodians or Rwandans who come over to France as refugees. A child who’s seen his whole family slaughtered before his very eyes. Which is better, Mr. Dragonman? To allow everything from that child’s brain to be erased so that they can forget the horror and grow up like any other kid? Or to make them carry that burden all their life?”
“To be frank, Captain, from a strictly psychoanalytical point of view, your theory is heresy! The child’s sensory memory would contradict what the adults around him were telling him. You can’t erase the ghosts of the past.” He paused. “But the image you used to illustrate the idea of containment is correct, Captain. It would be just like burying radioactive waste. It can be effective for years, but then it can leak out at any moment.”
He smiled at the policewoman.
“In reality, there is no absolute rule. Suppressing a violent trauma can provoke amnesia, even in adults. There are also cases of recovered memories: of sexual abuse in early childhood, for instance, denied, buried, but which come flooding back in adulthood. And then, how can you tell whether it’s a real or a false memory? The ghosts of the unconscious are there, Captain, they stay with us all our lives, loyal and invisible. In the end, there is only one method for learning to live in harmony with them.”
“And what is that?”
“Love, Captain! What a young child needs more than anything is physical and emotional security. Stability. Confidence in the adults who are protecting him. Verbalizing the trauma or not verbalizing it ultimately makes no difference if that ingredient isn’t there: the love of a mother, a father, or any other primary caregiver. That’s all the child needs!”
Marianne let herself be gently lulled by Dragonman’s words. On top of his accent and his clear oak eyes, he had an innate gift for teaching. A sense of rhythm, ellipsis, suspense. No wonder the Psychology lectures at the university were filled with female students.
She looked down at the child’s drawings again and frowned.
“OK, Mr. Dragonman. A mother’s love . . . But let’s get back to Malone Moulin. There’s something I don’t understand. You tell me that his story about exchanging mothers at the Mont-Gaillard shopping center took place several months—or nearly a year—ago. So how can Malone remember it, if the memory of a child his age is so volatile? And then there’s the stuff that goes further back, his supposed previous life, with pirate ships, rockets, ogres . . . ”
“Because he’s been reminded of those memories, every day, every evening, every week, month after month.”
The captain almost fell off her chair.
“What? Who’s been reminding him? Who could possibly be talking to him about his previous life?”
Just as the psychologist was about to reply, Lieutenant Pierrick Pasdeloup burst into the room. He smiled broadly at Marianne while handing her a bulletproof vest emblazoned with the logo of the national police.
“It’s showtime! The doc just called us. Timo Soler wants to see him, as soon as possible. They’re meeting in less than an hour at a discreet spot at the port: the Quai d’Osaka, where Dr. Larochelle sewed him up yesterday.”
Captain Augresse jumped to her feet.
“Ten men, five cars. We’re not going to let him get away!”
Vasily Dragonman watched the whirlwind that had just hit the police station. Marianne was about to leave, slamming the door shut behind her, having completely forgotten about him, when he shyly raised a hand.
“Don’t you want to hear the answer to your question?”
“What question?”
“Who’s talking to Malone Moulin about his previous life.”
Marianne hopped about impatiently in the doorway, putting on her bulletproof vest.
“OK, go on then!”
“His cuddly toy.”
“Sorry?”
“His toy. Malone calls it Gouti. He swears to me that it’s Gouti who tells him about his previous life, every evening when he’s in bed. And, to be completely honest with you . . . ”
This psychologist had starry eyes that could persuade you that there was life on Mars, that could convince you to get in a rocket with him and fly there to populate it.
“ . . . to be completely honest with you, Captain, as strange as this might seem . . . I think he’s telling the truth!”
10
Hidden behind the wall of containers that were piled up like multi-colored steel bricks, Lieutenant Pasdeloup observed the white Yaris on the other side of the port. It was the only car parked on the peninsula that was separated from the rest of the docks by the Francis I lock.
All exits barred.
To the west, the ocean.
To the south, the Quai de l’Asie, and Papy, escorted by two cars.
To the north, the Quai des Amériques, where two other police cars waited, also invisible, hidden by giant cranes whose metal necks leaned out over a Venezuelan liner.
To the east, the fifth police car—the one containing Captain Augresse and Sergeant Cabral—was positioned a little closer, on the same peninsula as the Yaris, behind the artificial dunes made of sand and gravel dragged from the bottom of the estuary to allow ever bigger ships to dock at the concrete quays.
It was a Sisyphean task. Digging out a few cubic meters of sand when the ocean brought in twice as much with each tide.
It had been quite a while since Lieutenant Pasdeloup had last walked around the port. Particularly on this side, facing the Francis I lock and its vertical lift bridge. The biggest in the world, they said when it was built, before the Belgians, then the Dutch, then the Chinese went one better. Inevitably, this thought sent Papy forty years back in time, to the days when he would ride his bike behind his father’s, slaloming between the crates being unloaded by the dockers. Even then, Le Havre was practically still smoking from the bombardment of 1945 that had destroyed four-fifths of the city.
He wasn’t old enough to remember what the city had been like before that, a town of villas and ship-owners, the casino and sea bathing, the remembrance of which made old people cry. His father. His mother. Le Havre before the Café and Océane docks were transformed into cinemas, concert halls, shops such as Fnac and Pimkie, fast-food restaurants like Flunch. Docks where young people came, just as he did forty years earlier, but to relax and have fun, not to work.
“Papy! Can you hear me?”
Jean-Baptiste Lechevalier was standing directly opposite him, to the north, on the Quai des Amériques, separated by five hundred meters of ocean and four kilometers of sea wall. Lieutenant Pasdeloup snapped out of his reverie and pressed the button on the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, I can hear you. Can you see the Yaris too?”
“Yep. Got a perfect view of it, with Timo Soler inside. Officer Bourdaine’s already got a few nice shots of him. He doesn’t look too good. I reckon he’s praying that Larochelle hasn’t forgotten about him.”
Lieutenant Pasdeloup checked his watch. 1:12 P.M.
“What the hell is he doing, that bloody doctor?”
“He says he’s on his way.”
Lieutenant Pasdeloup cut the walkie-talkie connection for a moment and looked through his binoculars again. Timo Soler was leaning back against the headrest of his seat. He kept closing his eyes, but never for more than a few seconds. The rest of the time, he scanned the space around him, alert. Papy could not see any weapons. Soler’s hands continued to grip the steering wheel.
Because he wanted to be able to leave as quickly as possible?
Because he was in pain?
The lieutenant lifted the walkie-talkie to his lips again.
“Marianne? What should we do? We can’t wait here all afternoon for the doctor. JB wants to go get him now.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think Timo would find it very difficult to get away from us. There’s only one road to the south of the port where he’s parked, and two bridges to the north. We should be able to cut off all escape routes.”
“Yes. But Soler didn’t choose that spot by chance. He has a 360-degree view of his surroundings. He’d see us coming from nearly a kilometer away, and we have no way of knowing if he’s armed or not. Have you heard from the doctor?”
“According to JB, he’s on his way.”
“Let’s stick to the original plan then. Larochelle goes to meet him and gets him to swallow some sodium thiopental. That should send him to sleep in less than five minutes, and if that’s not enough, Larochelle will make him lie down and start slicing him up while we approach the car. What kind of car does the doctor drive?”
“A Saab 9-3.”
Marianne whistled.
“It’d be a shame to start without him, don’t you think? I can’t believe he’s agreed to dirty his tires again on the gravel pits of the port.”
“Oh, it’s a question of honor, old chap!” said Papy mockingly. “Class solidarity. Don’t forget that Timo Soler robbed the four biggest luxury boutiques in Deauville. Put yourself in Dr. Larochelle’s position: if we let the peasants do what they want, whatever will become of us?”
Captain Augresse interrupted her lieutenant’s flight of fancy.
“I get your point, Papy. Let’s wait another ten minutes for our superhero to turn up, and then we attack.”
The port looked deserted, giving the impression that the liners in the docks had been abandoned there, and that the gantry cranes had stacked the containers all by themselves, out of habit, rather than under the guidance of any driver. As if the machines and robots had taken over, the only things capable of surviving this steel and concrete wasteland. The containers seemed to be accumulating randomly, in accordance with some absurd logic that had been lost along with the last man.
To Papy, it seemed impossible that there was any rational order to the way in which these haphazard piles of boxes had been arranged. Impossible, too, that any of the bookkeepers from the harbor master’s office could have any idea of what was stocked along these kilometers of docks.
Lieutenant Pasdeloup, never taking his eyes off the white Yaris, remembered his father’s words.
A port that is working is a port without boats.
A boat that is not at sea is a boat that loses money. And his father had been one of those swarms of dockers who had rushed towards each new liner to empty it as quickly as possible, the different teams trying to outdo each other, trying to break records.
Nowadays, thought Papy, a port that is working is a port without men.
“The doctor’s still in Harfleur,” JB’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie. “He says he’s stuck in traffic, but my guess is he was probably swamped at work. He promises he’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Papy looked at his watch again. The doctor was already seven minutes late for his meeting with Soler.
“What do we do, Marianne?”
“Nothing. We keep watching the Yaris and we wait.”
We wait.
A gray tanker moved slowly through the port. Russian flag. Gas or oil, probably. At the rate it was going, it would pass the Quai des Amériques in a few minutes and obscure JB’s view of the peninsula.
Doesn’t matter, thought Papy, at the other end of the port; he and Marianne still had an unimpeded view. The fine rain that had fallen on the concrete sea wall had given way to a patch of brightness in the faded sky, like a badly rubbed-out pencil drawing.
“Soler’s on the move!” Marianne yelled into the walkie-talkie. Papy pressed the binoculars to his eyes just in time to see Timo Soler grimace, straighten up, and set off at speed.
The Yaris leapt towards the port, performed a U-turn in a cloud of dust, then headed north, straight towards a red metal bridge a few hundred meters away that stood at the entrance to the lock.
“Go, JB!” yelled Papy in turn. “Soler’s on his way towards you. Marianne’s on his tail.”
Lieutenant Pasdeloup, positioned t
o bar any retreat towards the south by Timo Soler, between the oil tanks and the estuary road, was now forced into the role of spectator. Even though he was situated less than five hundred meters from the scene as the crow flies, more than two kilometers of docks separated him from Soler’s Yaris.
He saw Marianne’s car set off from the sand dunes, siren screaming, no more than a few seconds behind Soler.
The wounded robber didn’t stand a chance.
He moved the binoculars a bit higher up, as if to anticipate the Yaris’s route.
Jesus wept!
Lieutenant Pasdeloup bit his lip as he stifled another blasphemy.
Soler had chosen just the right moment.
As the Yaris reached the lock, the bow of the Russian tanker was almost touching the edge of the vertical lift bridge. Soler’s car accelerated again as the bridge slowly began to rise.
Echoing the police siren, the lock alarm went off. Three red lights flashed in front of the lock, the blue flashing light on the police car mingling with them to create a purple halo.
The Yaris drove onto the bridge. Through the twin lenses of the binoculars, it looked minuscule next to the tanker; a fly skimming the horn of a rhinoceros.
“We have to stop him before he gets away!” shouted Papy, powerless.
“I can’t see a thing,” replied JB into the walkie-talkie. “We’re driving past that fucking Russian ship. If Soler gets across the lock, we should end up nose-to-nose with him.”
Or just after him, calculated Lieutenant Pasdeloup, watching anxiously.
Marianne’s car had almost reached the red bridge. Cabral was driving. A solid cop. Reliable. Experienced.
“Hurry up, for God’s sake!” the captain ordered him. “If Soler can get over that bridge, then so must we!”
Marianne Augresse had undone her seat belt and had opened the window of her door to give her the best possible view.
And to shoot, if she had to.
Cabral didn’t blink.
Papy saw Timo Soler’s vehicle speed up and then launch itself through the air between the vertical lift bridge and the dock—a jump of one meter, maybe less. It was difficult to tell the distance from where he sat.